Okay, so Blizzard’s been doing this hero ban thing in Overwatch 2 since April. Heard of it? If not, no worries. Basically, some heroes like, oh, Sombra, Zarya, and Symmetra keep getting the boot. Why? Because people keep banning them. There’s data backing this up—of course there is—and Blizzard’s been publishing it, kinda like, “Look, see for yourselves!”
Sombra’s getting smacked with bans at this eye-popping 85% rate on PC. Zarya too, but she’s chilling at 59%, and Doomfist is like, “Don’t forget me,” at 43%. On consoles, Sombra’s even less popular—93% ban rate. Really?! Zarya and Symmetra are in the mix too, just not as much drama there.
Blizzard’s Gavin Winter (senior systems designer, fancy title I guess) is saying they’re peeping all this data to shake up hero balance, maybe. Like, if someone’s always banned ‘cause they do too well on certain maps, maybe tweak them a bit? But don’t expect huge changes just ‘cause people aren’t picking one hero. Hero Ban data isn’t the end-all-be-all for them, apparently.
Now, what’s this mean for Zarya, Symmetra, or the queen of bans, Sombra? Who knows. If you can barely play Sombra over 85% of the time—because, surprise, people don’t like playing against her—is that a problem? Sure seems like it. Why bother mastering a hero if they’re benched most of the time, right?
And yet, Blizzard’s not losing sleep over it. They like what they’ve cooked up, minus some quirks, whatever those are. They’re saying, “Yeah, our system rocks! Can’t wait to see how it all changes, especially when we show you more juicy data on hero performance!”
Oh, before I forget, they’re dropping some map-voting feature in season 17, coming in late June. So players will have more say in where they play. Little bit of democracy in gaming, perhaps? We’ll see how that pans out.
