Ah, Blizzard. So, April came around, and they decided to throw in this hero ban thing for Overwatch 2. If you’ve been diving into those intense matches during season 16, you might’ve noticed certain heroes—like, did anyone else get whiplash from how often Sombra and Zarya got the boot? Symmetra and Ana, too. Anyway, Blizzard dropped some data. Seems like these bans have a reason. Maybe heroes get a tweak, maybe not. Who can say?
So, boom—here’s what Blizzard said: “Sombra’s off the charts with an 85% ban on PCs, and, wait for it, 93% on consoles!” That’s like… 9 out of 10 games. Ban city. I mean, Zarya and Doomfist aren’t far behind, but still. It’s wild.
Gavin Winter, the brains over there at Blizzard, threw some words out about digging through hero ban data to figure out balance changes. Something about niche heroes needing a makeover if they’re always benched where they shine—oh, and the unpopular kids might get a new paint job, too. But, like, nothing’s set in stone. No magic “make-everyone-happy” button yet, y’know?
Zarya, Symmetra—what happens with them, huh? Is Sombra’s unavailable vibe kind of insane? 85% unpickable, just because she’s a pain to deal with? I mean, why pick a hero that’s collecting dust, right?
Even with these hiccups, Blizzard’s like, “We like what we built, mostly.” Winter’s got this optimistic thing going on, expecting Hero Bans to get cooler, maybe with data magic about hero wins and picks. Fingers crossed, I guess.
Oh, and season 17—mark those calendars for late June. Players will get the steering wheel, literally, with some map-voting thing. Spice up the matches a bit, eh?
