A Comprehensive History of Overwatch Metas Part 19: The Here and Now

Part 19: The End (For Now)

Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

The Sigma meta stayed very static for a while as teams realized that double barrier was extremely good. Sigma was just insanely valuable in the metagame. His movable shield, stuns, and relatively high damage output just manhandled the metagame around him. Nerfing the shield health for both Sigma and Orisa didn’t help much. Instead, it just made having them both even more imperative in order to provide the teams with support. Now, Orisa and Sigma were everywhere.

Fortunately, Blizzard realized the problems before OWL Season Three. Sigma was nerfed to the ground as a result, bringing forth an interesting new era of multiple shield teams. These new Orisa/Reinhardt teams (previously regarded as a laughable concept) began making waves. The meta didn’t see too many shifts outside of that; the support meta was still pretty varied, with all but Mercy and Zen seeing notable play. Ana was by far the second most used one, however, after Lucio. McCree saw a huge upswing in usage thanks to buffs and favorable meta developments as well. The tank meta was interesting as well. Orisa/Rein stuck around for a bit, but it was eventually superceded by Reinhardt and D.Va being played together. D.Va brought utility to the table that the other tanks could only dream of, but Orisa still saw some play thanks to the newly discovered potency of double shields.

The Mei-Ta

Image Courtesy of the Overwatch League

The new meta definitely trended towards a very ground oriented playstyle. The two best DPS heroes were McCree and Mei, neither of whom were known for their vertical play. In fact, D.Va was often the only “Dive” hero in a match (excluding Lucio of course).

It was mentioned earlier that this was a very grounded metagame. Mei was one of the most popular DPS heroes for a reason. She had always been great at disrupting grounded offense, which is one of the reasons that SNOATS had its brief moment in the sun. Mei here played a similar role. Separating the tanks or the supports from the rest of the squad and then picking them off. It worked wonders once again, and as such Mei became a true staple for the first time in a very long time.

And that’s every meta in Overwatch so far!

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