When does hero pool switch?

Competitive Discussion
1

Wtf, week is over, but sigma/mei/hanzo/bapt are still banned. They do dumb thing and can’t even handle it properly?

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2

Sigma? But it was Orisa that was banned.

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3

Yep, my bad. The question still remains.

4

My guess is that it is on Thursday. I’m in no hurry for it to switch. Mei being banned has been a great time.

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5

It’s been 5 days

which you might recognize (or not) as not being a full week

there goes your high pedestal

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6

Queen Mei shall rise again! =P

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7

Not necessarily Nibbler, unlike the Overwatch League, a hero can be banned for up to two weeks in a row (but no more than two).

UPDATE: This post is now outdated. Both Overwatch Competitive Play and Overwatch esports including the Overwatch League now use the same unified hero pool which rotates on Mondays

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8

Thanks for the answer. Could you please also tell us when does OW team plan to finish this weird experiment?

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9

Please tell me you’re joking.

A week is already a long time in gaming. Now you’re saying that someone might not be able to play their favourite hero for two weeks?

This is beyond ridiculous. Hero bans aren’t needed in game to begin with. People are already not playing for a week because their favourite is banned. If they don’t play for two weeks then the chance of them not returning at all increases.

Can Blizzard not see how bad hero bans are for the game’s overall health and longevity?

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10

It needs to end now.

And given that it is an experiment, why is Blizzard doing this in Competitive and not on the new Experimental card they went to the trouble to add?

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11

Hero Rotations will rotate every Thursday with w/e other updates or patches they plan to put out that week.

12

It’s a currently stands hero bans is intended to be a long-term feature of the game, Game director Jeff Kaplan did say that if it was highly disfavored by a majority of the community it would possibly be removed by the end of season 21. That being said it’s been my observation from reading the forums, from seeing reactions across social media, and pro reactions from the OverWatch League that hero bans are proven to be highly successful. So I will come as no surprise to me if hero bans are here to stay. However that is my personal speculation and observation. Of course there’s going to be a few people who don’t like the restrictions, but at that point it’s up to them whether they would continue to wish playing or not. I myself will continue to keep playing.

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13

I thought they said it’s max one week!!
They did say in future they may adjust, but I’m sure Jeff said to start with it will only ban a hero for a week.

I’m all for OWL having hero ban as made it more interesting. Not liking it quite so much in my comp.

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14

Nope according to the article that interviewed Scott Mercer, hero bans for competitive play can keep a hero out of rotation for up to 2 weeks but no more than that.

15

I just updated the post with the link to the article, please take the time to read it. Overwatch League itself will keep a hero out of rotation for only one week, but it only picks randomly from a pool heroes that have had significant play time.

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16

1 week is a long time in gaming.

It may be fine for Overwatch League as they only play once a week.

But on ladder when people play every day a week is far too long. Two weeks is just ridiculous.

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17

True but as a friendly reminder, hero bans will not affect any game mode outside of competitive, and they also encourage those to attempt to play different heroes or roles if a preferred hero is not available. with only four heroes removed we still have a game that’s very intact but it allows for the game to change virtually every week.

18

Thanks for that.
I do think they have back tracked as I’m 99% sure that is, that Jeff originally said 1week max at first.

I think if a popular hero out for more than a week it will cause people to dislike it
Of course it’s subjective.

19

There will be rotations no longer than one week, however that does not mean all four heroes have to be rotated.

Furthermore I’d speculate that they’ll be very rare instances where a single hero will be out for 2 weeks in a row.

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20

Ok maybe I misunderstood when Jeff started to talk about it then.