The change will be immediately obvious for players when they jump into Overwatch 2. On top of the hero reworks for the likes of Overwatch’s Bastion, as well as hero tweaks that have yet to be fully detailed, competitive and professional games of Overwatch 2 will likely look very different from how they do currently. Of course, it will also play differently for players at all skill levels, with each role having a changed role on the battlefield that will likely take a little while for players to adjust to. Exactly how the meta will shake out once Overwatch 2 launches cannot be determined until all of the heroes’ abilities are known, but there are already some signs pointing towards how the roles may have to play differently.
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How Tanks Will Play Differently in Overwatch 2
Having a singular tank on each team will see the role having a very important role in a team’s composition. Overwatch 2 will be overhauling all of the game’s tank heroes so that they are powerful enough to fill the role by themselves and be more dynamic. Some changes that have already been shown include Zarya being able to hold two charges of each of her barriers, Winston having an alternate firing mode, and Reinhardt being able to cancel his pin as well as holding two charges of fire strikes. The changes are meant to ensure that tanks are bigger threats on the field while also giving tank players more options to be able to navigate and react to situations.
These changes will make team fights in competitive and professional matches be decided by what team can eliminate the others’ tank player first. The meta will likely look similar to Overwatch’s infamous GOATs meta with team fights revolving around superior healing and targeted damage to better pick apart the enemy team’s composition. Tank players will have to play extremely smart in Overwatch 2, so, hopefully, Overwatch 2’s new changes and passive abilities coming to the tank heroes will give them the power and flexibility needed to support their team.
How Supports Will Play Differently in Overwatch 2
The importance of the tank role being shouldered by a single tank will drastically change how support players will have to approach keeping their team alive. Coming changes to most support characters in Overwatch 2 have not yet been detailed. However, Overwatch 2 has shown off some helpful new UI elements that are specific to each healer that should help players better allocate their resources across the team. Of course, it is likely that some healers will receive some new balancing tweaks to help them better perform in the meta at launch.
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With the new meta likely revolving around keeping a single tank player alive, support players will likely want to divide and conquer to keep their team standing. Teams will likely want to have one dedicated healer like Mercy, Anna, or Moira that can pocket their tank effectively. The other healer will likely play more of a support role with healers like Lucio, Zenyatta and Bastion being chosen for the area of effect healing that sees them better suited to keeping the team’s DPS heroes alive on top of helping the team with other things like buffed damage or cancelling out enemy Ultimates. Of course, this could also change to more closely resemble the old GOATs meta and see teams favoring two healers with area of effect healing for more mobile game modes like Overwatch 2’s new Push map type.
How DPS Will Play Differently in Overwatch 2
DPS players will likely have the least amount of change to adjust to when Overwatch 2 arrives. Blizzard has detailed some changes coming for the role, like Mei no longer freezing enemies or all characters in the role having increased movement speed. The biggest change announced so far for DPS heroes include Bastion being entirely reworked for Overwatch 2 but most DPS heroes have mostly just received aesthetic redesigns to bring them into the future.
However, DPS players will still play an extremely important role in team compositions in Overwatch 2. The heroes that DPS players pick will be integral to a team’s composition and will have to play well with the team’s chosen tank. Teams will have to coordinate well with their tanks for compositions like running Genji and Tracer with a Winston to make a more dive-oriented team or Bastion and Torbjorn with Reinhardt for a more bunker-like approach. DPS heroes will also have to focus on targets very well, likely having to take down the enemy team’s healers or combo their Ultimates to take down tanks. Heroes like Widowmaker or McCree that can take down smaller heroes by exploiting a single positioning mistake will likely be very popular to help pick apart the enemy team’s composition. Overwatch 2 will likely introduce at least some changes to DPS heroes to help them perform better in the meta.
Of course, none of the meta will be set in stone until Overwatch 2 officially launches. When it does arrive the game will look drastically different than Overwatch with especially big impacts on competitive matches as well as on the Overwatch League as a whole. It is great that Blizzard has started opening up about what fans can expect from Overwatch 2, and there looks to be a lot of big changes coming that will freshen up the game for all of the players that have already invested hundreds of hours into the original. Hopefully, Blizzard will have more information to share with players soon, including a window for when players can expect to get their hands on it.
Overwatch 2 is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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