Best Heroes in Overwatch 2: Tier List Rankings (Season 17)

Overwatch 2 Tier List Rankings – The Best Heroes

In this tier list, we’ve got you covered with the best heroes in Overwatch 2.

We’ve updated our tier list for the Season 17 mid-season update. Our tier list always reflects the latest balance changes straight from Blizzard https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/

If you play other shooters, be sure to also check out our Apex Legend Tier List or Marvel Rivals Tier List.

Let’s dive in!

Here are our rankings for the best heroes in Overwatch 2:

Note that the heroes are organized by difficulty for new players/beginners who haven’t tried them yet.

Orange represents a high/hard skill floor, Blue represents an average skill floor, and Green represents a low/easy skill floor.

Overwatch 2 Tier List Commentary

As always with our tier lists, we want to highlight that we believe that the player always matters more than the character you play as.

If you have an off-meta main that is working for you, by all means, no need to switch! Keep rocking it.

This list is more to understand if one of your characters is favorable in the current meta, or to help players that have run into a plateau.

Hero Bans

After years of the community asking for them, we finally have Hero bans in competitive mode!!! Depending on your individual preference, you can ban the heroes you find most annoying, like Mei if you’re a tank main, ban the strongest heroes like Sojourn, or ban heroes that specifically counter the hero you play. The introduction of hero bans also has an impact on our tier list placings as some heroes who are strong but have a hard counter, become incredibly strong when those counters can now be banned.

We recommend coordinating with your team and your planned team composition when deciding on ban choices. Don’t forget, certain game modes and maps also favor particular heroes. If you aren’t planning on using D.Va or Winston on Gibraltar, for example, they would be a worthwhile ban.

Powered Up!

Hero Perks were officially added to Overwatch 2 for Season 15, and a few have been tweaked for Season 17!

Be ready for huge Perk balance changes coming in Season 18 as the devs have stated they are overhauling multiple Minor and Major Perks to align with the launch of the new hero Wuyang next season.

How Perks affect hero balance

Some perks further increase the specialized strength of a hero, while other perks are meant to cover a weakness. Throughout a match, as you unlock Minor and Major perks, players can now customize a hero to their playstyle preference.

Perks and bans have evened out the power level of many heroes, and the game is pretty balanced overall. We consider every hero to be viable this season with the right perk selection, ban picks, and strategy. Those in the bottom tier are notably weaker than the rest of the roster, but even they can find success in the right hands!

Perk Progress

Damage, healing, and eliminations are the primary ways for you to gain Perk progress.

Losing perk progress has also been a soft nerf to counterswapping. Having to give up powerful perks makes players more hesitant than ever to swap mid-match and counterpick your hero.

In case you didn’t know, swapping to a new hero late in a game will have you gaining perk progress and a multiplied rate. Another important mechanic to remember when swapping is that individual heroes don’t lose perk progress if you swap back to them.

Current Meta

The introduction of Perks as well as the ability to ban heroes and vote on maps have massively shaken up the meta. Currently, the meta is revolving around heroes with a balance of a strong base kit and powerful perks. Some heroes begin rounds as powerful but their perks have such low impact that they end up way behind as the match progresses.

Overall, Season 17 shifted the meta away from full dive comps and over to brawl and rush style comps led by the Tanks with the highest amount of self-sustain. In one sense, games have slowed down, but DPS dive heroes like Tracer and Genji have been performing really well, so most teams are made up of a hybrid of strong heroes rather than sticking to one archetype.

How tiers work

In S-tier, you’ll find the best heroes in Overwatch 2, which will be very present in almost all maps and team comp combinations.

A-tier heroes are still great choices but tend to be present on fewer maps than S-tier characters in pro play. However, in some situations, A-tier characters might shine more than S-tier characters.

In B-tier, we’re continuing the trend of heroes that have lower overall presence and are even more specialized. Some heroes here are just worse versions or downgrades of heroes in a similar niche above them (such as Ashe being the better hitscan choice over Soldier: 76).

Lastly, we have the Situational batch of heroes in the C-tier section. These heroes are rarely seen in comparison to their peers and are usually pulled out for specific map areas or by character specialists. If you’re having success with them, by all means, keep playing them.

The Best Damage (DPS) Heroes

Tracer

Reverting her damage to 6 per bullet instantly brought Tracer back to her usual place of being the best DPS in OW2. Even with the nerf to bullet spread in the mid-season 17 patch, she retains a firm hold on the meta.

Her rise has notably impacted the viability of Supports such as Juno, who have recently fallen out of the meta due to nerfs but also due to the difficulty of staying alive against Tracer and other dive heroes.

Cassidy

Point and click. Cassidy’s kit is straightforward and powerful. The only determining factor is the individual’s mechanical proficiency. He’s strong against the meta Tanks, lethal in the midrange, and has good survivability.

The Best Tank Heroes

Orisa

While the mid-season only took away 25 armor from Orisa, these small breakpoints can have big impacts. Unfortunately for those sick of playing into the Orisa raid boss of the last two months, she’s still one of the best Tanks for the second half of Season 17.

The 17% cooldown nerf to Energy Javelin does open up the window to approach and harass her teammates, so she’s not as dominant as the first half of Season 17.

Ramattra

Ramatra has only been held back by Orisa’s unmatched survivability as of late. With her nerfs, Ram comes up to match her as an S-tier Tank for this patch. He’ll be pushed back by Javelin less often and has less armor to eat through when Pummeling.

After the buffs to Nanite Repair at the beginning of Season 17 its definitely the stronger Major Perk. Be sure to run and save Vortex to have the upper hand in duels.

The Best Support Heroes

Baptiste

Not only are Bap’s damage and healing both top tier, but his survivability and synergy with the meta heroes are the best in class.

He’s also been an excellent choice with the stationary Tanks like Orisa, Ram, and Sigma, who are all really strong this season. Against the meta DPS, he holds his own in duels can not be dove without careful planning and cooldown tracking.

Kiriko

No need to stop attacking when using Fortune Teller Perk that shoots out healing every time you land a Kunai. Kiri’s APM is off the charts this season. Min-maxing her damage and healing while never dying will be the key to her success. Eliminating her has always been a challenge, but now with a double TP, diving Kiri is practically hopeless. She wasn’t hasn’t been nerfed at all recently, while other previously strong Supports have. She retains her spot as a top-tier Support in all modes going into the second half of Season 17.

Want to dominate the meta for other games? Check out all our other Mobalytics tier lists.