Overwatch Season 18 most played heroes by competitive tier - September 2019
The top 15 most played Overwatch heroes in this meta: September, Season 18. Find out the most popular support, tank, and DPS heroes at each skill tier.
Blizzard has not released an Overwatch API to access the data of all players in the game, so this article displays no official info. There are several websites that gather data from their users, and I decided to utilize the statistics provided by Overbuff as it is the most popular one.
Jeff Kaplan shared the official data on season 9, and the figures were mostly similar to the ones available on Overbuff. We can trust the data even it is isn’t completely accurate.
I have published updated data (based only on PC players) during each season. Check out all the previous meta reports.
Past Meta Report: Season 17, July 2019
More: Updated Overwatch Hero Tier List
Note: Patch 1.40.0.0, published on September 17th, brought changes to several heroes, so I decided to use only data past this date. In specific, the statistics displayed inside this article consider the period of time from September 23rd to 29th.
Most popular heroes by rank
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| # | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum | Diamond | Master | GrandMaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moira | Moira | Moira | Moira | Moira | Moira | Sigma |
| 2 | Mercy | Mercy | Reinhardt | Ana | Sigma | Sigma | Moira |
| 3 | Orisa | Reinhardt | Ana | Sigma | Orisa | Orisa | Orisa |
| 4 | Sigma | Sigma | Sigma | Reinhardt | Ana | Lúcio | Lúcio |
| 5 | Reinhardt | Orisa | Mercy | Zarya | Doomfist | Doomfist | Doomfist |
| 6 | Lúcio | Ana | Zarya | Orisa | Lúcio | Ana | Reaper |
| 7 | Ana | Zarya | Orisa | Mercy | Zarya | Mercy | Wrecking Ball |
| 8 | Reaper | Reaper | Lúcio | Doomfist | Reinhardt | McCree | Ana |
| 9 | D.Va | Lúcio | Doomfist | McCree | Mercy | Wrecking Ball | Mercy |
| 10 | Junkrat | Junkrat | McCree | Lúcio | McCree | Reaper | McCree |
| 11 | Zarya | Baptiste | Reaper | Roadhog | Roadhog | Zarya | Baptiste |
| 12 | Roadhog | McCree | Roadhog | Reaper | Reaper | Reinhardt | Hanzo |
| 13 | Baptiste | Doomfist | Baptiste | Baptiste | Wrecking Ball | Baptiste | Widowmaker |
| 14 | Symmetra | Roadhog | Junkrat | Wrecking Ball | Baptiste | Roadhog | Symmetra |
| 15 | Doomfist | D.Va | Wrecking Ball | Hanzo | Hanzo | Widowmaker | Roadhog |
Hero pick rate at GrandMaster
Tank popularity
| Hero | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum | Diamond | Master | GrandMaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sigma | 6.1% | 6.1% | 6.3% | 7.4% | 9.4% | 13.1% | 15.2% |
| Orisa | 6.3% | 5.9% | 5.6% | 5.9% | 7.3% | 11.2% | 12.8% |
| Reinhardt | 6.1% | 6.8% | 7.2% | 6.5% | 4.9% | 2.8% | 1.1% |
| Zarya | 3.5% | 4.8% | 5.7% | 6.0% | 5.3% | 2.9% | 0.8% |
| Roadhog | 3.2% | 2.9% | 3.3% | 3.7% | 3.5% | 2.3% | 1.2% |
| Wrecking Ball | 2.0% | 2.0% | 2.2% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 3.0% | 3.2% |
| Winston | 1.7% | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.3% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.6% |
| D.Va | 3.8% | 2.5% | 1.7% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
The Double Barrier meta
Orisa is undeniably the best pick of the actual Double Barrier meta, but Sigma achieved a higher pick rate in September. I believe that many players at GrandMaster prefer the latter because Orisa is too plain to play: you just place barriers, keep shooting the enemy’s shields with Fusion Driver, and launch Halt! whenever necessary.
The Sigma mirror matchup (mirror = both teams have the same hero) is quite fun due to his skillset, but the Orisa one is very repetitive. She usually stands behind her barrier, shooting at the approaching enemies, and if they get too close, the best strategy is retreating at a distance and placing a new barrier.
Honestly, I hope Reinhardt will become a popular choice in the future as the mind games among Reinhardts were very entertaining for a main tank.
There is no reason to pick other tanks if you wish to rank up
You can decide to not play Orisa and Sigma in this meta, but you are basically soft-throwing the match because all the other tanks are weaker if compared to them.
For example, playing Winston/D.Va could rank you at a lower SR than a meta tank at the same skill level (of course, it also depends on the rank range considered, as meta picks are less impactful at lower ranks).
With the double barrier meta, the game is certainly not as fun as in the past, especially for a DPS character as you end spending most of the time shooting at a barrier. Sigma and Orisa are not a problem individually, but their total shield uptime is very boring to deal with.
How to play against dual barriers
I must underline that trying to break shields against a team that has two redeployable barriers is pretty much meaningless.
The situation was different years ago when each team had only one shield-tank (Reinhardt), but nowadays Sigma can protect his team whenever Orisa is on cooldown, so they are impenetrable with just a sole DPS hero focusing them.
There are a few strategies that work well against the double barrier:
Rush in. You must advance past the barriers quickly, so the team needs to cooperate and move together exploiting Lucio’s speed boost.
Dive. It looks like people forgot about the existence of the Dive strategy after an entire year with GOATS, but this the best method to counter static shields.
The options above do work, but they require a certain level of teamplay that is often missing in pubs, so attempting them with a random party might cause a defeat most of the time.
Shield war. Mirroring the enemy team is the simplest and safest strategy. Both the teams will end fighting with a double shield in their lineup, so the final outcome will depend on the skill of the individual players.
About Sigma himself, he is not very hard to deal with. Many players believe they have to take him down in order to advance, but this is not strictly necessary: as a solo player, you need to monopolize his attention (and his shield) for as long as necessary to weaken the enemy’s formation and give your teammates the chance to react, acquire a few kill, and gain an advantage.
Sigma - Blizzard
Sigma strengths and weaknesses
Sigma has a deployable shield able to block almost as much damage as Reinhardt’s one, but he is more versatile and possesses a reliable long range stun (with a huge hitbox) and can inflict a solid damage (comparable to DPS heroes).
We talk about a hero with the damage of an off tank and the shield power of a main tank, and the barrier is even redeployable at any time and at a distance.
He can damage, stun, and absorb projectiles (even if the cooldown of Kinetic Grasp is pretty long).
The ultimate Gravitic Flux affects a large area, and it is nearly unavoidable. You can use at any time, and it will always bring benefits to the team, while for example Zarya’s Graviton Surge requires coordination to not be wasted.
I believe Blizzard overturned him, and the ultimate in particular needs a small nerf to the radius because right now it affects a gigantic portion of the battlefield.
Note: Mei, Moira, Reaper, and Orisa can ignore the crowd control effect of Sigma’s ultimate with their own abilities.
While Sigma is exceptionally strong in this meta, he has also a fatal weakness: Dive heroes punish him hard.
Right now, the occasional Doomfist is already sufficient to disrupt his gameplay, but he would have a very hard time facing Winston + another dive hero. Unfortunately, dive heroes are not played in the current meta (Winston is rather weak too), and the long-range DPS characters just can’t go past his shield.
Incoming nerfs
The last Overwatch patch, published on the PTR a few days ago, reduced the regeneration rate of Experimental Barrier from 175 to 150, added a 1-second cooldown after recalling the barrier, and removed the initial 0.2 second cast time.
It was an unavoidable change because before Sigma could immediately redeploy his shield, blocking basically any kind of attack, and if well-managed the barrier could to be up at all times.
The added cooldown will force the players to adjust their playstyle as the deployable shield will become a sort of Zarya’s Projected Barrier, so you will mostly summon it when you actually need to block incoming damage.
The instant-cast also makes the shield more reliable against burst damage.
Nevertheless, in the double shield meta, Sigma will continue rotating barriers with Orisa, so the team will always have a safe spot.
Experimental Barrier isn’t even Sigma’s strongest point: his success is determined by his whole kit. The shield nerf would be a big deal if Sigma was a standard main tank, but he is a hybrid off tank. His versatility could be compared to the early Brigitte.
DPS popularity
The following graph shows data on the top 8 most picked DPS heroes at GrandMaster.
| Hero | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum | Diamond | Master | GrandMaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doomfist | 2.4% | 3.0% | 3.9% | 4.8% | 6.3% | 7.9% | 9.0% |
| Reaper | 4.3% | 4.4% | 3.6% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 3.0% | 4.3% |
| McCree | 2.2% | 3.0% | 3.9% | 4.8% | 4.5% | 3.8% | 2.9% |
| Hanzo | 1.9% | 1.8% | 2.0% | 2.3% | 2.8% | 2.2% | 2.0% |
| Widowmaker | 1.1% | 1.0% | 1.2% | 1.7% | 2.2% | 2.2% | 1.9% |
| Symmetra | 2.5% | 2.4% | 2.1% | 1.8% | 1.7% | 1.6% | 1.3% |
| Ashe | 1.2% | 1.4% | 1.5% | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.1% | 1.1% |
| Bastion | 1.6% | 0.9% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.1% |
Sombra is not a suitable pick against Double Shield
Sombra is considered a great pick versus shield-tanks, but she just doesn’t work in this meta:
Even if she hacks one of the tanks, the other one can still deploy a shield.
There is lot of CC (crowd control) in this meta, and these abilities hard counter them.
She requires a perfect communication to do her work: if she doesn’t call Hack, or if the team doesn’t react in time, her influence is pretty much zero.
EMP charges very slowly as it is quite hard to farm it against two barriers. Of course, if not focused you have no problems charging your ultimate, but this is not the case in most games (especially at high ranks), so you end with about 2-3 ultimates per map.
There are better DPS characters, such as Hanzo and Widowmaker who can oneshot at a long range, and Mcree with his sustained damage. There is really no reason to pick Sombra considering her low-value and high-risk gameplay.
Note: the pick rate of Doomfist and Reaper at GM massively increased compared to a few months ago. Currently, they are the best options to deal against double barriers and Sigma.
Support popularity
In this graph, Symmetra is still included among the supports because of the statistical tool used. Removing her would have caused problems with the data.
| Hero | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum | Diamond | Master | GrandMaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moira | 12.6% | 13.4% | 13.5% | 12.7% | 12.5% | 13.3% | 14.0% |
| Ana | 4.6% | 5.8% | 7.0% | 7.5% | 6.9% | 4.7% | 3.2% |
| Mercy | 7.8% | 6.8% | 6.2% | 5.5% | 4.5% | 3.8% | 3.0% |
| Lucio | 4.8% | 4.4% | 4.0% | 4.4% | 5.9% | 9.0% | 11.2% |
| Baptiste | 2.8% | 3.1% | 3.2% | 3.1% | 2.8% | 2.5% | 2.5% |
| Zenyatta | 1.5% | 1.7% | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.1% | 0.5% | 0.4% |
| Brigitte | 1.2% | 1.1% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.7% |
Hero pick rate considering all ranks
Next Meta Report: Season 18, October 2019
