Top 5 Most OP Basic Abilities In Overwatch

Hello, everybody!
Disciple here with Overwatch Curios!
We’ve shown you a ton of OP stuff and top lists from Overwatch including things like
ultimates, OP heroes, and even the most hated heroes in the game.
This time, let’s take a step back and think of things on a smaller, more focused scale.
Instead of looking at the big picture, or major flashy abilities, today we’re going
to check out the top 5 most OP basic abilities!
Some heroes have amazing abilities that are just there and require no special build up
or wombo to use, and can really be game changers when in the right hands!
Basic abilities are the building blocks of team cops and their method of offense, defense,
and killing potential.
These abilities are ranked based on their overall power, usefulness, and versatility,
while disregarding their overall learning curve or ease-of-use.
Let’s see who made the list!
Underrated and misused most of the time, Zarya’s Projected Barrier is an extremely useful tool
for a myriad of situations, used both offensively and defensively.
For 2 seconds the ally you shield it immune to damage AND charge Zarya’s shield at the
same time granting her a damage boost to her Particle Cannon.
You hit the button and a very short duration shiled pops onto your target, there’s even
a similar barrier for Zarya herself that does the exact same thing.
It’s a pretty simple concept, yet hard to execute at the right time for the right hero.
You need to be able to hit targets with the barrier REACTIVELY instead of proactively.
Basically, toss it on them AS they are taking damage, not before, which is most people’s
default way of thinking about a shield.
The reason this simple method of protection / weapon charge is so OP is because it makes
Zarya exponentially more deadly in seconds and once her Particle Cannon is charged 70%
or above, she will absolutely melt enemies in front of her.
Zarya is, by all intents and purpose, an aggressive, close to medium range tank and when played
correctly, can use this one simply ability to turn around and absolutely delete and entire
enemy team when paired up with things like her ultimate Graviton Surge, or control ultimates
from heroes like Mei and Reinhardt.
Speaking of Reinhardt, he’s sometimes overlooked since he’s almost ALWAYS on teams in just
about every league and we’re just so used to him and his abilities we don’t really
think about how ridiculous he really is.
His shield is insane, guys.
2000 hit points, instant pop anytime it’s needed, quick recharge while its down.
Okay, cool.
We all know that.
But look PASSED the shield for a moment.
Look at what’s going on in the background!
Every team member that takes advantage of his shield is given precious seconds to do
whatever they want.
Heal someone up, take a patient aimed shot at someone face, reload their weapon, build
their ult…
Those fer seconds can mean the difference in a coordinated attack and just getting systematically
wiped because teammates are rushing around looking for cover or unable to get that ability
or shot off to make the difference.
We focus so much on offensive, insta-killing abilities that we sometimes forget that the
defensive ones are just as, if not more, important.
There is no stronger shield in the game, hit-points or uptime, so the next time you pop into battle
with a competent reinhardt who saves your life more than once with a flick of his mouse,
thank him for the help in making you look awesome!
Roadhog is a super fun hero to play.
High-action, skillshots, and abilities to keep him in the fight make him one of the
most fast-paced and crazy-to-play tanks out there.
His signature ability, the Hook, is so OP that competitive teams often call out with
excitement that a hook has been used from an enemy roadhog and actually WAIt for this
ability to be down before making pushes with certain heroes.
The hook does exactly what you expect it to.
It snags the target and pulls them up close and person to the Roadhog player leaving them
vulnerable to attack.
It’s attached to a mile-long chain and can snag any hero from wherever to where they
don’t want to be: Within range of your scrap gun.
The real OP nature of the gun comes in two parts: First, it can be used to get hard to
reach heroes out of position; Pharah is a great example.
Nothing like taking that flying missile battery and literally bringing her down to your level.
Snipers, healers, builders…
literally anyone at a distance that you want to abruptly interrupt can be picked.
And that’s the second part: Interruption.
Once the hook grabs you, you stop everything you are currently doing.
Like ulting, for example.
One-shot ults like Reaper’s death blossom, or Pharah’s missile barrage are completely
negated by a well-timed ult.
And nothing is more rage-inducing (or funnier) than hooking a McCree mid-deadeye before he
actually fires.
The hook is a skillshot, making you have to actually aim and hit your target for it to
work, but with a little practice, you can be a HUGE asset to your team by hooking problematic
targets and negating abilities and ultimates!
Overwatch’s posterchild is a handful both in the lore AND in play style with a pretty
high skill cap to be effective.
Though tracer at her core is made up of only a few similiar abilities, they are all very
powerful and can directly or indirectly cause massive damage, confusion, and annoyance on
an enemy's backline.
One particularly OP ability is Tracer’s recall.
At face value, it’s a rewind of sorts taking the player back a few seconds to presumed
safety, or at least a better spot for escape… but it’s so much more than that!
First thing’s first.
It CAN be used defensively, in which it takes you out of harm's way and regens your health,
which is excellent!
If you time it right and learn the count, you could effectively hop in, do damage, recall
away with full health with a few options at your disposal.
You pretty much get an extra life.
But to maximize the OP recall ability, one must learn how to use it offensively.
Effectively you can use recall to get a new vantage point on the target you are already
flanking by coming at them in a direct way.
For example, coming at them head on, blinking in and THEN flanking essentially moves their
focus to another part of the fight - namely where you are.
At this point, using recall will put you back to where they aren’t looking letting you
dive in for another kill or two.
You sacrifice your escape for extra damage and potentially more kills.
You can also use recall and timing to position yourself in beneficial places like on health
packs or next to turrets.
All-in-all having an “extra life” ability that can fully self heal AND double as a flanking
tool turns out to be pretty darn OP!
Vision is paramount in any shooting game that requires even the slightest bit of tactical
play or objective holding.
In Overwatch, having vision of an enemy player or team is crucial as the opportunity to see
what your opponents are doing are few and far between as well as extremely valuable
in such an ultimate-reliant and team fight heavy game.
You would think Widowmakers infrasight would be the clear choice for vision here, but we're
actually going to focus on Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow!
It's a pretty simple to use shot.
You switch over to it, aim in the general direction of the area you want vision on,
and let her rip!
The arrow will lodge itself into walls, ceilings, surfaces, and other surfaces.
You can even make a mobile vision radius by firing the arrow at a payload, or even an
enemy player as they head back around a corner for cover, only to reveal the rest of their
team.
Having real time vision is amazing for planning attacks or counters, or knowing when to pop
ultimates!
The primary reason Sonic Arrow takes the OP cake over widowmakers ult is because of the
frequency of use.
You can easily get several Sonic arrows before widow has even charged her first ult fully
and if you total up the time that you have vision between the two, you'll see Sonic Arrow
takes the win there.
The only drawback is the limited range, but even when Widowmaker pops her ult, you can
only use so much of the info directly and immediately.
With Sonic Arrow, it can be focused info that can be used right away.
This kind of quick, relatively constant info is useful to literally ANY team at almost
any time, as long as the Hanzo has a good sense for where to put the arrow.
It syncs up with just about every ult, ability, wombo, offense and defense and should not
be underestimated or overlooked for its overpowered-ness!
A quick shoutout to a few that almost made the list!
These honorable mentions are pretty darn amazing!
Reaper’s wrath form is extremely helpful to reaper players for getaway situations.
It makes him 100% invulnerable and he can move out of the way of incoming danger very
quickly and through enemies.
The reason it's held back from the list is the fact that it doesn't heal him or allow
him to fire his weapons.
Still, its massively awesome for Reaper players and is a common staple in their arsenals.
Torbjorn might seem like an unlikely candidate for this list, but consider his bread & butter:
the turret.
He drops it down, it builds itself up to level one and starts firing.
Great for a retreating torby or just to put a little more pressure on an area.
Upgrading to level 2 takes 0 resources except a bit of time and makes the turret even more
powerful and full of area denial.
And of course, pressing the Q button when the flashy thing happens causes the turret
that cost you 0 resources and took 5 seconds to construct, into a powerful killing machine.
Sounds pretty damn OP.
Mei’s wall definitely deserves to be here.
Besides being a massive annoyance to the enemy team (and sometimes the friendly team… mei
players know what i'm talking about), it has all kinds of clutch uses.
For example, stopping a reinhardt charge dead in its tracks.
Or negating a zarya graviton surge follow up by blocking the team from your friends
caught in the ult.
You can use it in a very offensive way by using it to get yourself and your team to
places the normally couldnt go as a group.
Another example: torbjorn up on a building because he got boosted by a mei wall!
Very effective utility ability and quite OP!
Man, with so many OP basic abilities, it's no wonder these Overwatch matches get so crazy
and intense!
How did you feel about the list?
Did we miss any or do you have a different order of OP?
Let us know in the comments and hit us with a like if you enjoyed the video!
Thanks for watching and sub for more!
See ya!

Top 5 Most OP Basic Abilities In Overwatch

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