I’m in my mid 20’s so I don’t know all these new terms, can anyone tell me what poke means?
" Poke. One of the three main team composition archetypes . Poke aims to utilize long range heroes to wear down the enemy and get picks before they enter they engage on you."
From the Overwatch wiki
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poke is a strategy where your character excels at dealing periodic damage at long range without necessarily committing to an engagement.
by picking heroes that excel at this position, you create a situation where the other team has to either outpoke you, or close the distance to negate the advantage your range provides you.
a poke strategy would ideally inflict significant damage to an approaching target, earning an advantage before the attacking team reaches their desired range. this is how they would compensate for being weaker in the close quarters battle.
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Thank you this is helpful
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theres different types of “team metas” in overwatch
poke is when you play heroes that can deal damage at range like ashe and sigma, they can poke the enemy and apply pressure from a distance to force them to give up space
then u have dive where you play heroes that have high mobility like tracer and dva that can directly wear down your backline to force out important cooldowns and make enemies turn around and peel for their allies
then u have rush/brawl where you play heroes like mauga and ramattra who can sustain themselves really well and excell in close range combat, so they get up close to claim space and can be very threatening if you are in their face
you can mix and match these metas sometimes like reinhardt can be either poke or brawl depending on what the rest of your team is playing (i.e. if you had ashe, s76, mercy, bap VS having reaper, mei, lucio, brig)
they all have strengths and weaknesses, for example, poke has a harder time dealing with dives, dive has a harder time dealing with high sustain of brawl, and brawl has a harder time pushing through lots of poke and closing the distance
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whenever theres a teamcomp youre curious about, just know its almost aaaaaaaaaaalways about some combination of ideal ranges and movement.
sometimes theres some specific synergy involved but since the removal of the offtank thats much less common.
“Poké” is an abbreviation of “po-ke-(tsu)-to,” the pronunciation of the word “pocket” when written in katakana. It forms the initial component of “Pokémon,” the latter component of which is short for “mo-n-su-ta” or “monsters.” It makes a convenient prefix for items related to Pokémon, such as the Poké Dex, Poké Balls, Poké Sunblock, Poké Urinal Cakes, Poké Insulin, the Poké GAU-8 Avenger, etc.
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Interesting type of cake indeed
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QUICKLY PIKACHU GRAB THE POKEINSULIN MOM HAD WAY TOO MUCH POKEVODKA AGAIN SHE IS GOING INTO POKEDIABETIC SHOCK AND IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE
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Yeah, i never understood why OW players insist on calling it poke, instead of just like ranged damage but whatever lol
Its interesting because in Hawaii, theres a delicious fresh raw fish dish called “Poke” (Poe-Kay). Kinda sounds like there could be a relation there. 
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because you’re poking the enemy and bugging them from a range that they can’t fight back easily
also rolls off the tongue easier than ranged damage
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Age has nothing to do with anything. Poke simply means heroes that can dish out damage from a distance. So anything thats designed for mid to long range engagements are poke heroes. Flankers/divers are genji, tracer, sombra, venture. poke is like ashe, hanzo, widow, cassidy, torb, soldier, junk (most of the dps roster I think is poke). Brawl would be something like mei, reaper, sym. Same rule applies to tanks, orisa, sigma, mauga are technically poke. The poke playstyle is shooting behind cover or a distance waiting or hoping for something to die. Does this make sense?
Pretty much most uncoordinated games devolve into poke
well, “poke” is like this…
you reach out your hand…and then extend your index finger…then, upon close proximation to another person, you gently nudge said index finger into them…
In fighting games, it is a term used to describe a safe, relatively quick move that forces your opponent to either defend against it, or react to it in a specific way.
In FPSes, it’s basically the same maneuver, but the term “suppressive fire” is basically the same tactic or effect. You’re attacking a target or set of targets in a way to open them up or react a certain way to expose them to more danger. Poking is generally mind games, and trying to “feel-out” what your opponent does. It’s low-risk.
This is mostly false.
Yep.
Virtually anyone can do it, but it is mostly artillery that excels here. All Tanks are capable of doing it, and a handful of Supports.
Not necessarily. Poking strategies aren’t really there to inflict significant damage, but merely draw out enemy teams or force them to react a certain way. Just because Mei hits the enemy Ashe with a critical hit from her RMB, doesn’t mean that she did any lasting damage against a team that’s fully coordinated with attentive healing.
Sigma isn’t long range enough for poking. He’s about suppressive fire to prevent players from coming into his range of influence or his team’s.
Tracer also works in poking compositions.
Neither Mauga or Ramattra are effective brawlers; they tend to sit in the middle ground. What you’re looking for is Tanks like Rein, Junker Queen, and Winston. Many tanks can be suited to more than one particular strategy.
Correct, but we’re looking at gameplay terms from the competitive scene.
Because the term originates from various competitive games and almost all of them use the same term, because “spacial control” is incredibly important in a lot of them.