Overwatch Characters for People Bad at Video Games: Part I
A Guide for Players Who Don’t Shoot Good
Two weeks ago, at the urging of my friends, I picked up a copy of Overwatch. I was hesitant at first, because Overwatch is an online first-person shooter, and I’m terrible at shooters (I’m more of an RPG and strategy gamer). After playing for two weeks, I have two main observations:
- Overwatch is a FANTASTIC game
- I am still so, so bad at shooters
Luckily, however, Overwatch, a.k.a. Super Smash Bros. With Guns, is a game that you can play (and be pretty good at!) even if you are so, so bad at shooters! Yes, there are many characters you can play if you’ve been playing Call of Duty/Halo for five years. If you know how to 360 no-scope, then, like, go straight to Widowmaker. Good for you! Overwatch is a team game, and it’s important to have people like you on the team. But, what’s amazing about Overwatch is that there is also equal importance on players filling roles that don’t necessarily require the greatest amount of shooting skill.
Now, the best Overwatch is played with a coordinated team — either a group of friends, or strangers who are helpful and engaged on voice chat. But, because we live in the real world, most of the time you will be playing with a bunch of total randos who don’t listen to you and won’t care at all.
So below, please find a list of characters (#5 — #3) who are good to play if you, like me, are an old who is fundamentally bad at shooters and plays online with random teams. This list only includes characters I have played so it doesn’t include Torbjorn or Bastion because I have some self-respect. Stay tuned for characters #1 and #2 next week!
5. Reinhardt
Reinhardt is often the first character that new Overwatch players start with, and for good reason! First of all, Reinhardt is probably the easiest “tank” character to pick up — as a tank, it’s basically your job to absorb bullets so that your weaker (but higher damage) teammates can stay healthy and destroy the other teams. And good news — if you’re bad at shooters like me, you’re great at getting shot! Your weakness is now part of your job description!
Picking a tank is also a good way to endear yourself to your teammates, because most people don’t want to tank, but if no one tanks the entire team gets wrecked. This is especially true for Reinhardt, who is a giant, slow moving colossus with a huge energy shield. This makes learning how to tank with Reinhardt stupidly easy! Are you bad at shooting? Reinhardt barely has a gun! He has a giant hammer that does huge damage at close range, and a handy charge button to slam fools into walls. So, put up your giant shield to cover your teammates, and when you get close to the enemy, charge at the biggest thing you see and start swinging. It’s really that simple.
Your teammates will also appreciate you picking Reinhardt! With Reinhardt, you are signaling to the rest of your team that you are going to cover for them and keep them safe. You are the gritty offensive lineman clearing space for your skill players to make highlight reel plays. It is the good, self-sacrificing and noble play to do, and your teammates will appreciate that.
With an actually coordinated team, Reinhardt is amazing. His shield covers an immense amount of ground and can absorb a ludicrous amount of damage, allowing squishy shooter types like Tracer and Soldier 76 to wreak havoc behind cover. After they advance into range, Reinhardt charges into battle, swinging his hammer left and right and causing complete chaos while his teammates swarm through the gaps, mercilessly eliminating a scattered foe. Pair him with a Mercy to heal some damage, and this team can roll through almost any obstacle.
BUT playing Reinhardt will quickly instill in you a deep cynicism about people, chaos and this bleak world we live in. Reinhardt is extremely dependent on his teammates to guard his flanks, heal him and damage the enemy team quickly. If Soldier runs off ahead to take on the enemy team and gets immediately murdered, Mercy gets nuked by Pharah because Soldier wasn’t doing his job, and Tracer is off in some random corner doing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, then suddenly Reinhardt is no longer the centerpiece of a massive, overwhelming force. Instead, he is a huge, immobile, easily flanked target with no ability to heal or escape, a giant Brontosaurus about to get its ass handed to it by a pack of snarling Velociraptors.
So! Reinhardt is a great pick if you want to show faith in your teammates to play with the barest level of competence and stand behind your goddamn shield. If it’s a total shitshow, though, pick someone higher up on the list.
Strengths: optimism, positivity, teamwork
Weaknesses: chaos, pessimism, human nature
So Reinhardt is great! But what if you want to play a character who isn’t as reliant on good team play?
Well, then you should pick:
4. Reaper
Reaper’s edgelord design and popularity with the vocal pre-teens who flood Overwatch’s voice chat may convince you that this character is a fast-twitch, high skill character that you, an old who is bad at video games, should steer clear of. This is nonsense. McCree, Genji and Hanzo require actual skill. Reaper, by contrast, is armed with two shotguns, the go-to weapons for home defense enthusiasts, small game hunters, apocalypse survivors and other people who don’t aim good. This means his weapons do a huge amount of damage and are nearly impossible to miss with at close range.
Reaper is also surprisingly versatile. Do you want to group up with your teammates, join them in the melee, charge up to the largest dude you can see, shove your shotguns into his face and blazing away? Reaper is great at that! Do you want to leave your idiot teammates behind as they jump into sudden doom, sneak up behind the enemy sniper wrecking your team and unload directly into their back? Reaper is also great at that! His skills are pretty self-evident — Shotgun (kills people), Teleport (gets you closer to Shotgun more people) and Wraith Form (run away when you inevitably bite off more than you can chew).
Because Reaper is great in the thick of things, or stealthily prowling the edges of the battlefield picking off stragglers, he’s good on pretty much any team. If you play him on a coordinated team, he is great at shielding behind tanks and popping out to annihilate opponents, occasionally sneaking back to the healers to get a couple wounds patched, and taking advantage of distractions to slip behind the enemy team and cause total mayhem. If you’re on a complete clusterfuck team, well, at least you can get yours by teleporting behind the Widowmaker/Bastion/Hanzo/Torbjorn slaughtering your inept teammates and end them pretty quickly.
Unlike when you pick Reinhardt, when your team sees you pick Reaper, they’re all rolling their eyes and lowering their expectations. But, you can actually use this to your advantage! When you play Reaper well and eliminate a ton of people, they’ll be pleasantly surprised. And when you inevitably get too ambitious/stupid and get rolled by half the enemy team, don’t be too disappointed — you’re just living down to your teammates’ expectations.
Strengths: going solo, getting sweet kills, looking awesome, SHOTGUNS
Weaknesses: getting trapped, bullets, I NEED HEALING, your team hates you
But what if you like shotguns, but still want to tank? In fact, what if you want even more shotgun?
Well, then you pick:
3. Roadhog
Roadhog is so, so much fun to play. His skillset is extremely simple, and wickedly entertaining. He comes with a shotgun, to murder people up close. But what about people who are further away, who you can’t shotgun? Well, that’s why you have a hook — pull them towards you and shotgun them! Also, while you’re shotgunning people, they might be hitting you too — so you have a health button that will give you back up to half your health. His ultimate is, essentially, “MORE SHOTGUN!” That’s it. It’s remarkably simple to play Roadhog.
Like Reinhardt, Roadhog is a tank, so picking Roadhog will also allow you to fulfill your tanky duties, doing your part to absorb damage for the team and draw attention. However, due to his ranged weapon, hook and self-heal, Roadhog is so much less reliant on his teammates. When you play as Roadhog in a coordinated game, you group up with your teammates, charge forward, start hooking people and blast away, popping out occasionally for a self-heal. If it’s a less coordinated game — do the exact same thing! So, you get to play a tank and feel good about yourself and helping the team, while still having a ton of fun. What’s not to love?
One thing in particular is worth emphasizing about Roadhog:
THE HOOK
The hook is a truly fantastic leveler of skillsets, and leads to some amazing plays. Is there a Pharah flying around, raining hellfire on your team? Flip a hook up and drag her down to the ground, then finish her off with a shotgun blast. Zenyatta floating around, healing their team and hurting yours? Drop a hook in that stupid Zen monk’s face, pull him towards you and blast away. McCree or Doomfist skulking around the corner of the team? Yank them out into the daylight and fire at will. Widowmaker think she’s safe on the rooftops? SHE IS NOT.
With the hook you can pull flankers into the middle of your team, stun tanks in the middle of combat, yank healers out from the safety of the back line, and basically ruin a team’s entire formation. And, you can do this while being completely mediocre at the game! Even if you are extremely bad at shooters, I guarantee that you can shoot a character in the head if they are three feet from you, stunned and motionless. Because that is what I do. All the time. And it KEEPS WORKING?!?!
Unfortunately, for as much fun as Roadhog is, he does have some weaknesses. If he’s kept at long range he’s at a severe disadvantage — the hook doesn’t really work when enemies can see it coming from so far away and he’s such a huge target even complete idiots will hit him at that distance. In that case, you should either try and sneak off to the side, or group up with teammates who can provide shielding/distraction while you close the distance. Basically, if you are in a situation where you can hook people, Roadhog is amazing. If you can’t, things get dicey pretty quickly.
But when it works — oh man, there is nothing better then hooking a player who is much better than you and demolishing them at close range.
So, if you need to play a tank, and want to do the right, honorable and good thing by your teammates — pick Reinhardt. But, if you don’t really trust your teammates, and you want to do serious damage — embrace your inner Scorpion, pick the Hulked-out Mad Max cosplayer, and prepare to have an absolute blast as you kill more talented and experienced players over and over again. GET OVER HERE!!!
Strengths: Shotguns, up close and personal combat, snipers who don’t realize they’re in hook range
Weaknesses: Being a gigantic target, snipers smart enough to stay out of reach
So! That’s characters #5 — #3 on the list of Overwatch Characters for People Who Don’t Shoot Good — stay tuned for #2 and #1 next week!
I’M A ONE MAN APOCALYPSE,
Jefferson