I’ll be specific with what I am talking about here. Heroes with only neutral matchups at worst. No player or hero will truly force them to swap.
Tank: Zarya. Only tank with a self-cleanse. Her bubbles are very broadly useful and her beam damage negates a lot of the damage blocking abilities in the game. She is dependent on getting high charge but thats mostly a skill issue
Support: Kiriko. Plays well with all comps. Difficult to focus down. Her entire kit is extremely broadly useful no matter what she’s playing with or against. Her 1v1 potential demands respect so she doesn’t really get flanked.
Damage: Sojurn and Soldier. Hitscan heroes with mobility and burst damage. Hard to dive. Strong 1v1 potential against the entire cast. Ultimates that always get value when used by a skilled player.
An above average widow counters all of them at the same time. (Good luck tho)
Sigma counters those hitscans heavily (granted he is a tank but sometimes it’s the tanks job)
Hitscan in general counters Zarya with enough range. Just shoot her team behind her, they are easy picking and she can’t do anything about it without turning her back to the frontline.
Kiriko? Well too bad I guess, you can snipe her and suzu can’t stop that, that’s about it. She’s got an answer or escape for everything and can fuel anything not a tank, and no tank can hold her in one spot long enough to kill, and even if they could engage her and she somehow didn’t have teleport, she had wall climb to evade the Poor range of tanks. Just kill her team first or hope she makes a series of mistakes I guess.
I REALLY think they should buff kiriko and make her a hit more consistent to get value from and go all in and nerf her health to 175 or even 150, and make her the super skill ceiling support like tracer is for dps. With such a high impact kit (that people find hard to land right) she feels like tracer in a way. When she’s used right she’s broken. But a lot of people can’t do it and her win rates are bad cause of it. Also, we gotta break her balance being directly tied to Ana anti… very exhausting dynamic that inflates her “consistency” in value.
I feel like Moira is pretty easy to play as when it comes to facing counters and not having to swap, at least in 1v1 matchups. Her fade is a cleanse and mobility tool and her self sustain allows her to stay alive long enough to fade again, rinse wash repeat. She is also just good at getting into people’s faces if played correctly.
Tank I would say Zar/Orisa, yes beams are a counter to Orisa but she can still be difficult to take down if the entire team doesn’t focus her down with beams. I honestly favor Orisa in being the one who had to swap less often, she’s just so flexible.
DPS I would say Mei, practicality no hard counters other than like high burst dmg so I rarely ever see her needing to swap when she’s on my team.
Rein is a reliable counter to Zarya - nothing overpowering but reliable nonetheless as he can block her for himself and the entire team while her bubbles are up and burst her down afterwards, effectively keeping her at zero charge if his team uses their heads and don’t shoot the bubbles.
Id say it applies to most hitscan characters, as well as a good enough sniper you can’t really do much about because they’ll just dome you, Tracer too can be added to the list, as she can just dodge anything you try, and so it really comes down to you having good enough aim.
Kiriko is definitely there too as she has 2 no buttons one for for herself and one for teammates or also can be for herself
And Ana. Yes dive and flankers “counter” her but she is still playable against those comps. She has the utility and self healing to keep herself alive. The only true support completely countered by dive and flankers is Zen.
she has one cooldown that works as a cleanse, if you have nothing to cleanse/I-frame through like a shatter or d.va bomb. She is just kind of worse moira. As she is going to do less damage/healing/ and going to struggle confirming kills with other heroes without putting her self in danger.
she isn’t a fix all, she is a counter balance tool for things like nade/stuns/burst damage.
But can only really do that once a team fight. once that’s done. Well… she just heals and throws inconsistent damage.
She is horrible at dealing with snipers, she can’ really manage AOE damage/ults/stuns and is mostly only good at peeling single target threats and trading a bubble for said cooldowns.
Great if you need to get rid of a pulse bomb, horrible if a ram is running at you with ult.
PFFT, soldier always has been a pretty mid hero, because he only is doing damage in a straight line. It’s not hard to flank, snipe, or just cut him off from attacking anything with a barrier or so.
Sojourn on the other hand has the benefit of being like a mid range sniper, and her ability to quickly access highground or just jump over a barrier into los of a squishy to pop damage into does give her some decent pick potential.
Unless your up against D.va, where she is going to be starved of charge on the right click. As DM doesn’t fill her gauge, and once she burns her mobility tool she is rather easy to dive.
TLDR, it just sounds like you have a small hero pull, and the characters you like are just bad against these specific picks.
Zero mobility, no way to endanger anyone in high grounds, no way to stop snipers from oneshotting her team.
Against people that understand to not shoot bubbles, she cant charge.
She cant deal with constructs or barriers, her only survivability tools screw over her team. Sustained damage wont give a crap about suzu’s half a second invul. Heroes that hide or have weird head hitbox means she is going to deal scratch damage.
Sojourn is arguably squishy but spot on with Soldier. Soldier is what happens when you overbuff a jack of all trades hero (and nerf most heroes) and now he is the best DPS for 99% of the playerbase while being way too hard to dive AND too easy to really mess up with him.
Sojourn can weaknesses but they are not strong enough to actually make use of them against her.
Soldier is a braindead do it all hero that currently has no real weaknesses and too many strengths.
Soldier is likely the retention metrics favorite child. Corporate likely dictated that he should be made easy and overpowered to keep people playing, specially CoD/Fortnite/Valorat players.
I don’t know if you’re a new player or not but Rein is known for Zarya’s counter since OW1 because her laser cannot penetrate shields, prevents her gaining charge on her weapon.
Stopped reading here. Zarya is the second easiest tank in the game to kill. You literally just bait her first particle barrier and then nuke her second barrier and her down. You definitely don’t have to counter-swap to kill her lol.
I think you could put pharah as a mei counter, although it’s not so much that she shuts mei down but that the mei often needs to swap to kill the pharah.
I’m weird in that I’m good with projectiles and bad at hitscan, so typically I switch to her to face down a Pharah, but I know I am a weird case there.
I don’t think she does particularly badly against Pharah, But that doesn’t bring up Echo?
Echo may be a counter, I’ve not played into a really good Echo player yet, so I don’t know how badly they can wreck a Mei, but I could see it.