Overwatch Wrecking Ball - tactics and counters according to the lead designer
Blizzard sometimes creates Overwatch characters in response to the meta, but Wrecking Ball is different.
When creating the mech-driving hamster, Blizzard wasn’t doing it with any specific counters or team compositions in mind - the developer just wanted to put this cool, weird character out there.
So how exactly will Wrecking Ball shake up Overwatch?
Wrecking Ball Overwatch - best tactics
“Occasionally, you have enemy compositions that are comprised of something like Orisa, some snipers, maybe Bastion, and they’re really tightly packed together behind Orisa or Reinhardt’s shield,” Geoff Goodman explains. “In those cases, Wrecking Ball should be really good.”
The idea behind Wrecking Ball is to dive in, disrupt, cause damage, and shake up the enemy formation. The mech gets stronger when he’s surrounded by enemies, making him perfect for wading right into the fray. So, what are some good counters if you’re playing against him?
Wrecking Ball Overwatch - best counters
One of Wrecking Ball’s biggest weaknesses are snipers. If the enemy team has multiple snipers spread out, he makes for a large target and he can have trouble hunting them down individually.
“Anything that disrupts movement at all, even just briefly, can really mess him up,” Goodman explains. “He doesn’t blink away or teleport away - even though he’s fast, he has to build up that speed. When he goes in and smashes into everyone or does a Piledriver, he has to start from zero again. That extra bit of time to get away or reposition can really be abused.
“Even if you hit him with a McCree flashbang, he has to restart that momentum. He’s a giant, round character. Those characters in our game, as Zenyatta players will tell you, they tend to get hit with every bullet. So any time you’re not able to move around it gets really bad for him.”
If you want to counter Wrecking Ball, some good abilities are Roadhog’s hook, Reinhardt’s ultimate, and even Ana’s sleep darts.
Wrecking Ball Overwatch - team composition and dive
Knowing Wrecking Ball’s strengths and weaknesses is all well and good, but how exactly will he shake up the roster, what team composition will we see once he’s released, and will we see the dive meta reinforced?
“Three tanks who can dive in and jump on the enemy team, Winston, D.Va, Wrecking Ball might be a thing,” Goodman says. “We may have some new, weird dive thing happening with him but we’ll have to see. We love dive - it’s super fun to watch, super fun to play, I think it has some interesting counters. One thing that’s cool with Wrecking Ball is that maybe we can broaden the concept of dive even more.”