The first uncounterable meta

General Discussion
1

Every meta in the history had a counter until now.
weaker or stronger there was some sort of countering.

  • brawl? you could go with a Bastion comp and finish them from range
  • dive? brawl the way against them and make sure zarya bubble the support.
  • double shields? dive them or go with a bunker comp
  • pirate ship? once against dive…
  • goats? stationary using heroes like junkrat or Bastion.
  • clock work? stationary comp. hanzo,junkrat and etc…
  • moth? hit scans…
  • double snipers? dive w/ zen & ana.

sorry if I missed something but overall what i’m trying to say is that all metas had some sort of countering, they were picked because of strength of heroes compared to other heroes but still are effected by countering. So in medium and low levels avoiding the meta was easy.
But with the current meta I really don’t know what possible solution there is… unlike the previous metas- this meta is not because strength comparision. this time it’s really about op heroes.

for anyone who doesn’t know we’re currently in the hog meta.
the usual composition is Roadhog-Zarya-Ashe-Widowmaker-Mercy-Ana.

The most logical solution for such composition would have been just going stationary… staying behind an orisa shield with sigma blocking the view of the snipers and Bastion just melt the tanks.
But both Orisa and sigma are so weak right now the snipers have no problem going through the deffenses really… not to mention you can’t really deal w/ the dps with such composition.

So then I thought maybe brawl with snipers would work but hog just melts the shields… 1 ammo is enough to break 1/2 of the shield.

I thought about it and realized where the problem comes from… in close range hog just melts everyone, meaning fighting a good zarya-hog combo will just result in death for every tank in the game… Zarya can stop a hook combo but that’s about it… all the rest of the tanks got noting on hog really…
and no dps can really survive against hog in the close range considering a hook is a kill, no longer a defensive tool but rather an offensive dps hook…

the only 2 dps options I found that may be the answer are Genji & Soldier:76 both are able to deal with the snipers while also not getting picked by hook that easily.
The only problem is that both are not that great tank counters… and all the point of fighting the meta is dealing with the main problem the current hog is so oppressive that you can’t get any close to him without dying either by hook or by his high damage…

Maybe it’s just me but right now it feels like the most oppressive meta that we ever had…
The only way to counter it is actually using it and all ranges are pretty much canceled…

9 Likes
2

First if you played Junkrat or Bastion into GOATS you lost (or were in gold where playing GOATS is not a good strat). GOATS had no counters which is how it was dominant for so long.

Junkrat is actually better into the current meta than he was into GOATS by a wide margin (the same with Bastion). At least if you pick those heroes they will simply swap tank compositions and hard counter you.

45 Likes
3

very early goats was cracked and beat pretty much everything. but a couple goats nerfs in (even before the armor rework) and all a team had to do was go 3 tank busters (junk was great) to farm any goats comp. it wasnt long before goats was ez to counter with dps and would only beat junk/bastion comps on extremely specific maps in top100 games and owl

4 Likes
4

I guess you didn’t watch the league… Goats controlled for a long time and then there was about a weak where bunker of orisa-bastion-symmetra-baptiste-mercy (I forgot who was the 2nd tank) was considered the perfect goats counter.
Then people continued playing goats but take in mind that the pro scene is where everything is perfect and coordinated.
running a bunker comp doesn’t require a lot of communication or targeting but running goats to it’s max potential do.

Bastion can easily melt rein,Brigitte and Zarya, and Symmetra’s turrets and primary before the nerfs at least were perfect solution for the 3 tanks and lucio…

The thing about goats is that similar to brawl they lack vertical mobility. only D.va can really reach high ground out of the tanks, so any heroes with high damage that can utilize high ground had a fair chance against the composition.

In that specific composition Bastion just doesn’t have enough cover… Orisa’s shield is only 600hp for 10 seconds.
widow and ashe alone do about 200 damage per second together meaning it will take them only 3 seconds to break Orisa’s shield alone…
You have to remember Roadhog is also about 207 damage poer second.
So if you play poke against a Bastion poke this composition will easily win you.
You can’t contest them from range or behind natural cover but they can contest you…

5

lol

pirate ship? once against dive

lol; Pirate ship usually involves Bastion, who destroys Winston and will have too many barriers for Genji’s deflect to work.

goats? stationary using heroes like junkrat or Bastion.

lol x100 for this one

moth? hit scans…
double snipers? dive w/ zen & ana.

completely divorced from reality. Moth was so strong that hitscan ults didn’t work on her; she could dodge their ults with GA and if she was ulting and they weren’t, Soldier and McCree’s fall off was too severe to hurt her. The only decent one was Widow, who synergized with Mercy more than she countered her.

Zen was so bad in double sniper (which was also Orisa/Hog) that OWL teams just replaced him with Roadhog.

all of these sound like they would only work in silver where people’s understanding of meta is “run these 6 heroes at the same time” and nothing beyond that. Running Bastion against Deathball or GOATs might work there because Bastion always shreds low ranks.

A strat becomes meta because it is stronger than it’s counters, and it’s very very rare this is not the case. “Countering Metas” isn’t a thing. It only happens in OWL in two situations. The team trying it is bad at the meta so trying to counter is still better than taking the mirror; See or the meta is on it’s last legs and your team’s particular skill set counters it; see the Shanghai Dragon’s S3S3 championship. They beat GOATs with Anti-GOAT triple DPS, because they also had god-tier Hammond, Pharah, and Sombra players. Other teams wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.

8 Likes
6

?

All the point of dive is to get infront of the shields. Winston is ofcourse weak to Bastion but he can keep everyone else out while Bastion is inside, D.va can block the damage for 2 seconds, & Genji deflect not only can do the same but also deal massive damage in the right time.
Bastion can no longer get free damage from range since you have enough mobility to reach him, dive is also pretty quick in it’s kill so Bastion dies really fast. Idk how many times you tried running dive against Bastion but it works like magic-Because Bastion is a big immobile box it’s super easy to focus it first.
You have to keep in mind close range makes it harder for Bastion to track if you run around him and you can reach his crit box much easier there.

If Genji does about 112 damage per second, tracer does about 240 damage per second if everything lands , Winston does 60 damage per second & D.va does about 146.74 per second it’s clear the ~4 seconds you earn are more than enough to finish Bastion even with heals. you have to rmemeber playing close also means ignoring shields.

Tell that to the league. They used the comp for about a week or 2 and won with it, now that’s when you’re playing against high rank players that can push goats to max with focusing and cool down management, things bunker doesn’t need from the start.
How do you expect to win a team that you can’t even reach? Zarya,Brig & Rein has no vertical mobility and will die quickly to Bastion’s high damage out put.

High noon is based on targeting and tactical visor can still hit her 100% of the time. How is that not countering? You fight an ult with an ult…
Valkirie requires 1820 points while visor requires 2310 and dead eye requires only 1680. I know soldier:76 may not be the best option to counter her in valkirie but mccree sounds awsome to me…
besides this meta wasn’t really oppressive. Mercy was the best choice for sure because of survive ability but she wasn’t something you specifically had to counter, you could still get value from focusing other heroes without her being too strong.

Zen was there more for countering the grav dragon, I kind of combined the double snipers with the grav dragon since both were pretty much the same, but the thing is you could always counter it with dive and shields. it’s not that op.

You forget everyoner hero as a limit to what it can or can’t do and each hero has a different job.
Reinhardt has no way of fighting Bastion in a high ground. What do you expect him to do? if you can’t go forward or get behind or jump on him Bastion is just gonna shred you. It’s especially problematic when he got a tp to get out of sight again.
You can talk about low ranks but the league itself used some of the strategies to win.
Metas are not pick to win. metas are all about what brings overall the most value out of the options.
That’s why if you look at the most picked heroes overall in gm you"ll see these are more generic heroes that can survive well against their counters and not getting shut down too drastically by 1 way,

Once again, pros use whatever has the most chance to win overall not by specific situation. otherwise it was a game of changing and ultimates didn’t really have any effect since no one was reaching them.
the meta is based around what heroes can bring most value in general and get the most out of their ultimates.
there’s a reason why Ana was part of the last meta only near the end when Genji joined- nano blade potential.

just look at it from a different angel.
Winston also has a shield and he also ignores shields. Sigma doesn’t
Genji works really well with Winston and can be pretty effective against the double shields dps in a 6v6.
Hammond also ignores the shields and can deal more damage than orisa in a burst and survive longer.
So why shields were picked? simply because of their overall potential not because they are’nt unstopable.

7

Meta’s can’t be countered and you have to mirror meta teams. It’s in the name, Most Effective Tactic Available.

We’re far away from seeing what the current meta is, ranked ladder is not a place where metas form, nor is it a place where the intricate details of meta plays can be analysed. Even in OWL, meta’s don’t tend to settle right after a patch, it often takes months of experimentation until the teams settle on the same comp.

In regards to this Bosshog meta idea I’ve seen floating around, I’m struggling to see how this can be viable when it allows for so much room for hitscan players. The tanks provide very little protection or assistance for their own hitscan and their health pools & abilities don’t really give themselves much of an opportunity to push forward, especially if the enemy are mirroring sniper picks.

8

Hog went from throw pick to unbelievably OP oh my god you better nerf him or the apocalypse will come for us all, just by reverting a previous nerf that put roadhog from tied for worst tank to throw pick.

Genji got 4, FOUR, solid buffs, at the same damn time, when he was already middle of the pack. Roadhog gets a revert back to when he was seen as one of the worst tanks, and is somehow more OP?

What the hell is going on?

9

It’s meta game, based on theorycrafting.

What the OP is saying that a meta relies on teamwork and synergies, which on ladder will be imperfect and leave gaps to exploit, especially when they come up against something they hadn’t planned or practiced for. Ladder also leaves a whole attic of headroom to just be better on any given hero than your opponent, because you’re not anywhere near skill caps.

The current meta game is just exploiting stupidly strong heroes. There aren’t any gaps in that, it doesn’t really rely particularly on team work; certainly nothing more complex than Ana spam heal tanks, Zarya bubble to save Hooks, and Mercy boost Ashe. It’s incredibly simplistic, which means you can’t do simple things to try to break it up. You either do it better or lose.

3 Likes
10

Hog is broken for sure. The way to win is have someone play Ana, then Ana throws a nade on the fatty, then your entire team has to pounce on the Hog or else he will survive. If you could get 3 people to go Reaper, Ana, and Zen, you could probably melt him pretty quickly. Good luck getting people to coordinate though.

11

Why do you think there’s no counter to Hog/Zar?

No one is even attempting to counter it. They’re having fun mirroring it. That’s something we definitely can’t say about double shield. They tried to counter it, but the unfun combo of Orisa/Sigma was the best answer to itself.

Once people realize they can run Rein/Zar/Mei/Ashe/Brig/Lucio/Ana, Hog/Zar will crumble. There’s not enough damage with Hog/Zar(unless you charge her to full)/Ashe/Widow/Mercy/Ana to break through Rein shield, zar bubble & Mei ice wall

2 Likes
12

There is a lot more variety now so I really disagree. Zen is actually getting played more now because it’s easier to land discord since there aren’t a million barriers in your way and you can land shots on people. Tracer is seeing more play now that Brig isn’t a thing. Bap and Lucio are more viable. Mercy pickrate has skyrocketed. Aside from Hog/Zarya, Winston and Ball are very viable on many maps too. Sombra is seeing some more play now.

13

Hog is broken. He was broken before they buffed him recently. Genji was fine before they broke his character, too. Rather than fix the huge problem they created with cancel deflect, they nerfed his damage. They need to revert every single buff on every single character that they made this year.

14

Hog isnt broken, he is VIABLE, and good at exploiting bad play. Bad habits like hanging out in the open because you used to have barriers protect you are working against you.

Aggressive playstyles that havent been seen since the end of dive are opening back up, time to scrap off that rust.

I have seen more zarya and ball than roadhog since the changes.

3 Likes
15

not to mention 141 was having good success against it late last season before 222 made it impossible to run…i suspect echo might be pretty good against it as well…

most effective doesnt mean you CANT counter…see above example…its just hard to do…it is a LOT easier to just mirror and may best team win so to speak…but far from uncounterable…

this current meta (which isnt by any stretch of imagination settled after a few days) will have counters as well…but people will mostly mirror…as always

16

I kinda wonder If hog is just exploiting how bad we all got at this game too. Because for so long we’ve been used to hiding behind barriers and forgot how to pay attention to flankers and such. It’s kinda like in low tiers when the Repear is missing forever and then everyone is shocked when he jumps down and ults them all. I wonder If after a few weeks people will learn how to pay attention better and Hog pickrate will go down.

17

I think it is just complacency, you cant demand the tanks switch to barrier for an easier match.

18

one “pros” opinion on this “uncounterable” meta…(language)

1 Like
19

If they’re talking about OWL then yeah I agree. But Hog/Zarya is easier for ladder because it doesn’t require as much teamwork.

20

Once people learn to respect the hook again, hog will go back to being a threat that is easily countered and farmed. High risk, high reward, as it should be.