These Overwatch cheat sheets provide a high-level breakdown of every single character's strengths and weaknesses, including which opponents they should avoid and which they should hunt down.
One of the best things about Overwatch is that gamers of just about any skill can jump into the shooter and find a character who suites their particular strengths. Although that is great for casual players, it also leads to a ton of variables for hardcore competitive players to balance (despite the lack of ranked play so far). Each hero has their own strengths and weaknesses and the most serious Overwatch players will want to be familiar with each rock, paper, scissors match up so that they can know the best character to take into each particular match up.
Overwatch is unlike many other games in that it offers players the chance to switch heroes at pretty much any time during a match. This means that players can see they are up against a team with multiple Tracer's for example, and decide to switch over to a character that is best suited to take down the speedy, glitchy hero. It's a lot of information to take in at the start of the game, but once players start to level up (maybe even to the 100 milestone), it's very helpful to know every character's strengths and weaknesses even if they aren't your preferred main. Luckily, one hardcore fan has thrown together an incredibly helpful cheat sheet for each player.
The follow cheat sheets, shared by icominblob on Reddit, offer a high level summary of what each hero is good or bad at and, most importantly, provides a list of the opposing characters that the hero is strongest and weakest against. The formula changes a bit from character to character, but each tip sheet is easy to read and makes perfect sense once you start to play with the character. Keep these guides nearby next time you login and start to think about how your hero should or shouldn't interact with the other team...
We've placed ** next to the characters that Game Rant recommends for players who are still learning the basics.
1.) Bastion**
2.) Mei
3.) McCree**
4.) Lucio**
5.) Hanzo
6.) Junkrat
7.) Mercy**
8.) D.Va
9.) Genji
10.) Zenyatta
11.) Zarya
12.) Winston
13.) Widowmaker
14.) Tracer
15.) Torbjorn
16.) Symmetra
17.) Soldier: 76**
18.) Roadhog
19.) Reinhardt**
20.) Reaper**
21.) Pharah**
A little overwhelming, right? Don't worry, there are about 7 million other Overwatch players also trying to learn the ropes this month. We definitely don't recommend attempting to process all of this information at once. The best thing to do is learn about each character one at a time, while playing them. Pick a healer, an assassin, and a tank and keep their guides nearby while playing through a few hours of matches. The cheat sheets should help new players get a better idea when it is time to bail on a character and move to one that is more appropriate for the situation at hand. The most important skill that this exercise should develop is map and opponent awareness. Thinking about what the terrain is like and which opposing characters are alive should play a major role in what character each player switches to.
Overwatch is a game all about teamwork, so even with a solid mastery of every character's strengths and weaknesses, players will still need to work cooperatively with the rest of the team in order to succeed consistently. Using the Reddit LFG tool is a good place for new players to start finding cooperative teammates until they find themselves rolling with a steady squad. Hopefully the game's matchmaking will continue to improve so that outside tools won't be necessary, but for now it's a bit of a dice roll when queuing alone.
Which character is your favorite so far? Do you have any other tips that aren't listed on the cheat sheets? Let us know in the comments.
Overwatch is currently available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Reddit