Overwatch: The Most Overpowered Heroes Of All Time

Summary

Ana’s high healing and utility dominated season one, marking an era of unmatched power and effectiveness.
Moira’s AoE healing ushered in the “Quad tank” meta without requiring high mechanical skill from players.
Brigitte’s destructive release made her the most overpowered hero in Overwatch history, leading to the “GOATS” composition.

Balancing a multiplayer game like Overwatch is never an easy job. It doesn’t matter how many years go by, how many updates are released, or how much the players complain; it is almost inevitable that certain characters will be stronger than others at various points in time.

However, there is a big difference between a strong hero and a downright broken one, and Overwatch has had its fair share of absurdly powerful iterations of its cast of heroes, ranging from insane healing numbers to ridiculous damage output, both for old and new heroes alike. These are the most overpowered versions of heroes in Overwatch history.

8

Ana

High Heals, Insane Utility

Ana has been around almost as long as any other character, as she was the first post-launch character introduced into the game. However, many newer players will have missed her initial wave of power that plagued season one with absurd healing numbers and a level of utility that no other character could even come close to matching.

Her kit has remained the same over the years, and she has come in and out of the meta both in combo situations and for her general power, but her introduction into the game brought with it a high pick rate and an equally high win rate that carried over into subsequent seasons thanks to her high agency, skill expression, and effectiveness in the vast majority of team-comps.

7

Moira

Bringing In A Whole New Meta

Moira exploded onto the scene in 2017 with her massive AoE healing potential that no other healer could compete with. Her kit is very simple and easy to pick up, which meant that if she was strong, any player could jump into a game and carry their team with their healing output alone, without worrying about complex mechanics or individual expression.

As was the case with many heroes, Moira’s launch brought with it a meta of its own, aptly called “Quad tank.” This team comp involved zero DPS characters; just a giant ball of tanks being sped around by Lucio and mass-healed by Moira. Through a war of attrition, teams had no problems taking points in seconds, and it was all thanks to the over-tuned nature of this simple yet absurd support hero.

6

Roadhog

A Tank That Also One-Shots From Across The Map

Roadhog has come in and out of relevancy several times over the course of the game, seeing huge playrates in the early days, a few dips in the middle, and a resurgence nowadays in modes like Stadium. The reason for his eb and flow presence is solely down to his hook, which one minute could pull players around 10 different walls and another would disconnect entirely.

When he was at his peak, Roadhog was one-tapping 200HP characters at range with his right-click, and basically annihilating any tank that dared to step too close. For good players, an eight-second hook cooldown meant a free kill every eight seconds, whether from an environmental execution or a massive pellet burst right to the face.

5

Sigma

Enough Shields And Damage For A Whole Team

Sigma has one of the more polarizing kits in the all of Overwatch. At launch, he had a shield that could rival Reinhardt’s, a projectile consumer like D.Va, a combo that could one-shot any 200hHPhero with no counterplay available, and an insane ult that could wipe teams solo in the right circumstances. He was an unstoppable jack-of-all-trades who had no equal.

With his stun power toned down a bit, he remained a mainstay in the meta, giving birth to the double-shield compositions that relied on his utility and shield rotations to block damage and still return fire with some heavy hits. He might not be as deadly as he once was, but Sigma remains a terrifying threat on the battlefield.

4

Sombra

More Reworks Than You Can Count

Sombra is one of those heroes that Blizzard’s Overwatch team can never get quite right. One minute, she’s getting her ultimate in 30 seconds; the next, she can one-shot a support with no counterplay. Throughout her time in the game, there have been plenty of moments where she shone bright, but none were more oppressive than her release version.

The reason her first iteration was the strongest was that she could not only hack health packs, but could gain ultimate charge from the healing done by them, both on teammates and herself. This meant that, during the first fight of a match, it wasn’t uncommon to see an EMP come out straight away, something which was quickly nerfed into the ground but still left her feeling pretty damn OP.

3

Mercy

The Angel Becomes The Moth

Mercy isn’t exactly the name that comes to mind when players think of an overpowered hero, but a quick trip to the past shows off multiple instances where she dominated competitive play and tore through the ranks of supportive power alone. Launch Mercy had a nice team-wide resurrection Ultimate that could bring back her entire downed squad at the touch of a button, so long as the player was good at hide and seek.

The second was her rework, which allowed her to be far more skill-expressive, but arguably more powerful, with a multi-healing beam and enough mobility to rival even the slipperiest of characters. This, coupled with a mid-fight revive that could be used twice, ushered in the Moth meta. Although she has been taken down a few pegs, that strength remains both as a pocket support and an overall great healing choice.

2

Doomfist

Practically Unbalanceable

Doomfist can only really be described with one word: Absurd. Before being reworked into a tank, Doomfist was a beefy DPS character that could one-shot half the cast in a second and get out unscathed as if nothing ever happened. His numbers were tuned so high that they allowed players to tear through backlines with ease, giving the enemy no time to react in turn.

He continued to dominate in most games, with so much pick potential that it was hard to justify choosing any other hero at the time. Nerf after nerf, followed by his eventual rework into a frontliner, and despite being a shadow of his former glory, Doomfist still stands as an incredibly oppressive character who can solo-carry games in the right hands.

1

Brigitte

A Never-Ending Nightmare

When thinking about characters that align with the word “overpowered,” there really is only one that stands out above the rest. Brigitte, for all intents and purposes, destroyed the game for well over a year by allowing for the infamous “GOATS” composition to dominate, resulting in several months of pain that were only ended with a forced role limit.

Her supportive power aside, that first Brigitte release allowed her to one-shot characters like Tracer with no way of stopping it and little input required from the player. With several changes and tweaks to her kit, she feels much more well-rounded, but that time will forever stand as one of the bleakest eras in the history of the game, cementing Brigitte as the single most overpowered character to ever enter the Overwatch roster.