There Are ONLY 3 Compositions in Overwatch - Rock Paper Scissors Meta Theory

Counter picking is essentially rock paper scissors, but at the same time if you get good enough at a hero, you can essentially become a rock so large no paper can cover.

Something that I feel hasn’t been mentioned yet in these videos is the significance of a DPS hero’s effective range. The reason why certain heroes are categorized into these playstyles is because their kits and effective ranges match the playstyle. In Gold ranks, I feel like building good team comps rarely happens, so a general rule of thumb that’s safer is to pick your DPS heroes to counter the effective ranges of the enemy and fill ranges that your team lacks or double down on the space that you do control. The ranges are pretty much: Close, Medium, Long, Far. Some examples of that being: Tracer, Cassidy, Ashe, Widowmaker in that order I think. Keep in mind I’m not a high elo player, but this is advice I’ve been given from friends that have played for a long time.

Ya know, Blizzard stated that they wanted to lessen the counter pick need in the game. Overwatch 2 feels waaay more counter pick based than Ow1 though... Which sucks Because you rarely get to enjoy the character you want to play the whole match, or you have a disadvantage

as a tank main its so infuriating rn, either I can play orisa and basically afk with the enemy orisa (they have to play orisa if I do) and pray my team win the 4v4 or i can play any one else, get discorded/hacked and focused, or the enemy switches to orisa and bullys me till I swap and do that bs again

I think the red triangle specifically should have been marked a bit differently. As it is now, it winds up preventing you from marking if the character is good at that role. Maybe changing the background of the cell to indicate a counter would work better? Then you could have Brig with a "counters dive" background and a good at dive checkmark. It's a little jarring to see "Ball counters poke" and also "ball is good in a poke comp" without seeing that laid out in the chart.

I think that flanking is often misinterpreted as always dive. Dive flank’s goal is usually to get picks by surprising targets from multiple angles, but Poke flanks and rush flanks can be used for different purposes. For example, rush flanks like rein/bastion can result in picks, but usually exist to force the enemy away out of position. Being sneaky isn’t as important since they gain space using their threatening aura. As another example, poke flanks like soldier/sym can pump out constant pressure from alternate angles. This is usually effective at creating crossfires on the enemy team. The largest weakness with poke or rush flanks is getting out safely. Since those heroes have less mobility than dive they should only go on flanks with a plan B. I am GM but team composition is a weakness of mine so please feel free to add anything that I may have missed.

As a Doomfist one trick in low elo, I can attest that you can get over the rock paper scissors by playing really well. However, it’s been increasingly frustrating that game after game, once the enemy sees me playing Doom, the enemy counterswaps to a more brawl-type comp and I can never play the usual dive playstyle that Doom is good at. (Especially since nobody in gold knows how to play with Doomfist to begin with).

I think you screwed up the thumbnail lmao

Gm pharah 1 trick here, pharah can 100% be played in dive, in fact thats the most fun comp i play her in. She has such explosive mobility that allows her to take aggressive positioning along with dive heroes and playing with dive her allows her to have more pressure on her counters as well as suplementing a lot of the consistent damage that some dive heroes lack. As long as you can translate good fundamentals into 3 dimensions, playing pharah in dive is a really good application of her kit.

Great theory and way to put into visual what people are thinking when they counter pick. Well done, sir.

Nice vídeo, the information is organized and explaind well so everyone can understand it.

Krow made a whole video just to flame a one trick gm mercy

I think there's a little more to it then just team synergy. Certain characters are capable of being independent, or given 1 teammate being unkillable (Ana brig, pharmercy). I can't speak for high levels, but in my games we found that doing a 3 man bunker and a 2 man roaming unit is very effective. The 2 man needs to be able to get kills though, but by pocketing 1 DPS and letting them cook the enemy is split or else it's the same thing as ignoring a turret: it may not kill you immediately but it'll kill you eventually. That strategy started as pharmercy but any dive DPS plus Ana or lifeweaver is also very strong we found. Ranged characters benefit from a brig or bap and are stupid hard to kill because diving one unit ignores the other, and splitting up results in multiple small fights

I like to think of what you call rush "brawl" while rush is brawl but with a lucio or a few movement heros mixed in cause I don't see a whole lot of rushing in these comps without mobility heros

Really love these vids. Currently struggling with mechanics (really only been pc gaming for about 2 years) and learning theory in the meantime is helping move my game forward.

Pro tip, don't follow the chart to a T. recognize what works and what doesn't. Kiri for example does work in poke comps decently well and rush comps she can be strong. rein works with poke comps most of the time as well. Dva works in rush comps aswell. mercy can work in rush comps. zen works in rush comps just as well as in dive (I would even say better). Hanzo can work with dive comps depending on the map. Junkrat works pretty damn well in rush comps and can work on poke comps depending on the map. Echo works really well in rush comps. And Tracer works really really well on rush comps. This is coming from a multiple time gm player so no I'm not just talking out my ass

I would say better is paper being poke and rush being rock for alliteration and dive being scissors because quite literally you try to cut or divide the team’s attention: the counters also still align, much easier way to remember.

New sub here, awesome video, ur content it's so good, keep it up !!

I actually find Pharah best or at least good with a dive comp, even if they have hitscans to shoot you down, them having a Genji/Tracer and a dive tank in their face all the time doesn't really allow them to do that. Not only that but having dive characters in your team also allows you to just go right above the enemy team for that exact reason, them unable to focus either you or the rest of your team at the same time.

By far one of my favorite ow creator thanks for the content man