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Overwatch 2 heroes and characters – all abilities and how to use them

Read our Overwatch 2 heroes guide for tips and tricks on how to master each character's unique abilities and playstyle to start climbing ranks

Overwatch 2 is here and for newcomers and long-time fans alike, that means wrapping your head around a big list of heroes and an even bigger list of abilities. Overwatch 2 heroes each possess many situational strengths and weaknesses, meaning players eager to succeed in matches will need not only need to learn the abilities of the heroes they want to play, but also every other hero, just so that nothing can take them by surprise.

It’s a daunting task, and you might find an eye drifting to the enormous list below and now you’re reconsidering whatever life choices brought you to this place, but don’t panic. Right from the get-go, the best strategy is to throw yourself head first into the game and just have fun. Then, when you’re ready to take your performance to the next level, read the advice for your hero of choice in the list below.

To succeed at the competitive side of the game, you’ll need to come to terms with all the Overwatch 2 heroes and characters, all their abilities and how to use them. So when trying out a new hero, check this list for the best tips and tricks to mastering them, and if an enemy keeps getting one over on you, check that hero too so you can learn what exactly makes them so special, so you can plan out your next counterattack.

Here are all the Overwatch 2 heroes:

Overwatch 2 Heroes – Tanks

Doomfist

Doomfist was a damage hero, but he’s been reworked as a tank for Overwatch 2. He’s had his uppercut swapped out for a block that allows him to absorb damage and turn it into a damage buff for himself. He’s also been given lots of extra health befitting his tank role.

He’s still the mobile melee hero he always was, however, excelling at quickly moving in and out of the enemy lines, causing disruption by getting in the enemies’ faces and sowing chaos while your team them off as they turn to protect their backline. As a neat trick, try cancelling his seismic slam mid-air with a rocket punch for an extra burst of upwards momentum.

His abilities are:

  • Hand Cannon
  • Rocket Punch
  • Power Block
  • Seismic Slam
  • The Best Defense…
  • Ultimate: Meteor Strike

D.Va

One of the most recognisable faces of Overwatch, D.Va is the name of the superstar pilot inside the bubblegum pink rabbit mech. Inside her mech, D.Va flies around gobbling up enemy fire with her defence matrix to protect her teammates, but when the mech takes enough damage, she’s left as just another vulnerable squishy until she can call it back down.

D.Va specialises in boosting around to shut down opponents on high ground, getting in their face or physically nudging them with her boost, and fits well with a mobile team, where she can use her rocket boost to keep up. If you’re about to be de-meched, you can use her self-destruct ultimate as a means of staying in the fight – just don’t expect to get many kills out of it.

Her abilities are:

  • Fusion Cannons
  • Defence Matrix
  • Boosters
  • Micro Missiles
  • Eject
  • Ultimate: Self-Destruct

Orisa

Orisa has gone from a bunker tank that can fire a shield to a spear-wielding stun monster after her Overwatch 2 rework. She moves slowly on four legs, but she can also absorb a lot of damage, and her spear can stun enemies and knock them back, dealing extra damage if you knock them into a wall.

Her ultimate ability pulls enemies towards her while dealing damage over time, before releasing a significant burst of damage to all enemies near her. Make sure to utilise her fortify ability to neutralise sleep darts and any other pesky effect-laden abilities.

Her abilities are:

  • Augmented Fusion Driver
  • Energy Javelin
  • Fortify
  • Javelin Spin
  • Ultimate: Terra Surge

Reinhardt

Objectively and uncontestably the best hero in Overwatch, Reinhardt is a massive hammer-wielding knight who protects his team with a huge laser shield. He holds up this giant shield to protect the team as they move forward, and when enemies get too close, he swings his hammer in a wide arc around himself, knocking them back. Pretty simple stuff, really.

To keep things interesting, his fire strike move travels through enemies and shields for a burst of damage, and his iconic charge attack propels him across the map and can be used to pin an enemy to a wall, usually killing them. If you find an opening in the enemy’s defences, use his ultimate to slam his hammer into the ground and stun anyone standing in his way.

His abilities are:

  • Steadfast
  • Rocket Hammer
  • Barrier Field
  • Charge
  • Fire Strike
  • Ultimate: Earthshatter

Roadhog

He’s a slow boy, Roadhog, but the big gas-mask-wearing rascal has a big presence. He’s one of the largest tanks in the game, and he packs a massive hook that can grab out of position players and bring them to him, finishing them off with a close-range shot from his shotgun.

A fan-favourite, if you can master Roadhog’s hook, fire, melee combination, then squishy supports can be reduced to dust in no time at all.

His abilities are:

  • Scrap Gun
  • Chain Hook
  • Take a Breather
  • Ultimate: Whole Hog

Sigma

This astrophysicist-turned-terrorist superweapon has a remarkably versatile arsenal to play with, though it can be a little difficult for new players to get a lot of use out of him early on. With Overwatch 2’s focus on damage dealers and mobility, Sigma can feel a little weighty in response, and so is best played on maps with narrow channels to focus his hyperspheres down, like Rialto and Hollywood, rather than any big, open maps like Junkertown or Busan.

Some starting tips: get used to recalling his barrier frequently so that it doesn’t get left behind as he leads the fight. Use his accretion to stun advancing foes, then follow up the attack with his hyperspheres to finish them off. Try not to get locked into his kinetic grasp animation when fighting beam heroes like Zarya and Echo. Also, remember to shield him from damage before launching into his Gravitic Flux. Once you’ve mastered all that, he’s easy-peasy.

His abilities are:

  • Hyperspheres
  • Kinetic Grasp
  • Accretion
  • Experimental Barrier
  • Ultimate: Gravitic Flux

Winston

Coming into Overwatch 2, Winston gets a small but crucial update – the ability to deal damage at range. While the damage on his tesla cannon’s alt-fire isn’t much to write home about, it at least shows Overwatch moving with the times, as Winston finally understands the concept of social distancing.

Every other ability in Winston’s moveset incentivises getting close to the enemy to deal damage, whether he’s jumping on them, zapping them with his crowd damaging tesla cannon, or knocking them about with his primal rage. Now, however, he has options: try protecting your damage heroes with his shield on the frontline, then hopping into the enemy backline to target their healers, before hopping away to the backline to protect your healers with his new alt-fire while they patch him up.

His abilities are:

  • Tesla Cannon
  • Jump Pack
  • Barrier Projector
  • Ultimate: Primal Rage

Wrecking Ball

Overwatch’s lore is a complicated beast – on one hand, you have a sleeper agent tortured into killing her husband for a terrorist organisation’s strategic benefit; on the other hand, you have an intelligent hamster who uses his mechanical skill to become the champion of Australia’s equivalent of Robot Wars.

Sometimes it’s just best to focus on what really matters – the fact that you can play as a giant rolling ball and knock enemies over like bowling pins. Wrecking Ball has a grappling claw that gives him Spider-Man-like web-swinging powers, allowing him to soar over enemies, smash down into them with his piledriver move, and then cover the floor in mines so they have nowhere to stand. If that’s what tonal dissonance gets you, then who needs lore?

His abilities are:

  • Quad Cannons
  • Grappling Claw
  • Roll
  • Adaptive Shield
  • Piledriver
  • Ultimate: Minefield

Zarya

For new players of Overwatch, Zarya can be one of the trickiest heroes to get the hang of, as so much of her arsenal relies on an acute knowledge of what is going on around you, and being able to predict the enemy team’s moves ahead of time. Once mastered, she can be one of the most rewarding heroes in the game to play, but it’s recommended you go a few dozen games as other heroes to get a feel for the flow of the game before giving her a shot.

Zarya’s abilities focus on her particle barriers, which she can use on either herself or her allies to protect from damage. Once a barrier receives damage, it charges up Zarya’s particle cannon, which at full charge allows her to melt enemies like tofu over hot fondu. Her charge depletes quickly, however, so finding the right rhythm for unleashing her pink bubbles and maintaining charge is key to achieving success with Zarya.

Her ultimate, Graviton Surge, is one of the most useful in the game, immobilising enemies in a small area together and exposing them to whatever damage your team wishes to inflict upon them. It’s the kind of move that can turn fights on their head, making Zarya a perennial favourite for pro players and amateurs alike.

Her abilities are:

  • Particle Cannon
  • Particle Barrier
  • Projected Barrier
  • Energy
  • Ultimate: Graviton Surge

overwatch heroes junkerqueen

JUNKER QUEEN

Junker Queen is the leader of fan-favourite map Junkertown. Like Junkrat, she’s an Australian with some serious post-apocalyptic Mad Max vibes.

She excels at getting up close and personal with her enemies and her abilities inflict damage-over-time bleeding, which means that while she’s not an out-and-out powerhouse, she can survive for a long time with her lifesteal passive.

Her abilities are:

  • Jagged Blade
  • Commanding Shout
  • Carnage
  • Rampage

Overwatch 2 Heroes – Damage

Ashe

When Ashe was added to Overwatch in 2018, she came as a breath of fresh air for a large proportion of damage players. At last, they cried – a hero who just shoots things good. No clever abilities like Sombra, no alternative combat style like Doomfist – just a hero with two cool guns, a grenade, and a robotic butler who could appear on command and capture the point on her behalf. Well, it is still Overwatch, everyone has to have something special about them.

Ashe’s iron sights make her a great solution for those pesky flying heroes, and the blast of her dynamite travels through shields and inflicts lingering burn damage to enemies, making it ideal for creating space for your team. She’s woeful in close combat, but point her coach gun at the ground to propel her to safety, and don’t forget to shoot her dynamite out of the sky to catch several enemies in its blast radius.

Her abilities are:

  • The Viper
  • Coach Gun
  • Dynamite
  • Ultimate: B.O.B.

Bastion

A foot soldier in the old killbot army that plagued humanity and brought about the formation of Overwatch, Bastion suffered a bout of robonesia and now holds the honour of being the most Hulk-like hero on the roster thanks to his reverting back to killbot mode if you make him angry. Sorry Roadhog, very close buddy.

Bastion comes to Overwatch 2 with some significant reworks. No longer an immobile turret who occasionally stands up to get blown up moving position, Bastion can now become a turret on wheels for a few seconds at a time, throw in the odd tactical grenade – then get blown up moving position. Absolutely worth it for his new ultimate, however, which lets him drop explosives from the sky on people. Super fun.

His abilities are:

  • Configuration: Recon
  • Configuration: Assault
  • A-35 Tactical Grenade
  • Reconfigure
  • Ultimate: Configuration: Artillery

Cassidy

This cowboy’s full name is Cole Cassidy, and it’s not clear why this needs pointing out, for it has always been this way. Cole is a cowboy and can do cowboy things, like shoot with a pistol, roll in the dirt, tip his hat down real low and then shoot real fast with a pistol – just cool cowboy things, really.

One very un-cowboy thing Cole used to be able to do was use a tactical flash grenade to stun folks – a thing that was deemed too un-cowboy-like, so it’s been removed for Overwatch 2. Instead, he has a magic sticky grenade that chases foes through the air and sticks to their bodies, blowing them to pieces before they can possibly react. Finally, now there’s a real cowboy thing!

His abilities are:

  • Peacekeeper
  • Combat Roll
  • Magnetic Grenade
  • Ultimate: Deadeye

Echo

In her bid to right the wrongs of her past hand in creating the Omnics, many of whom later became killbots in a war against humanity, Dr. Mina Liao created Echo. This time, there wouldn’t be any of that pesky murder business – she would simply allow Echo to form its own identity from those around it, mainly Dr. Liao herself, and then she would give her the ability to shoot explosives out of its fingers and, hey, wait a second, that’s sounding a lot like yet another killbot, Dr. Liao.

Still, in a game like Overwatch, it wouldn’t be much good if Dr. Liao were particularly effective at designing non-violent peacekeeper robots, so it’s quite a relief she’s so consistently bad at it. Echo shoots lasers and sticky bombs, melts people with a tri-beam, and can also morph into the shape of an enemy and steal all of their abilities, all apparently in the name of peace on earth. Tremendous work, doctor.

Her abilities are:

  • Tri-Shot
  • Sticky Bombs
  • Flight
  • Focusing Beam
  • Glide
  • Ultimate: Duplicate

Genji

Having survived nearly being killed by his brother, Genji joined Overwatch as a backflipping cyborg-ninja and would spend the rest of his days requesting heals on missions, even though he never sits still and it’s not our job to shoot you in mid-air, Genji, it’s the enemy’s job. Yeesh.

When things work out for Genji, he’s an absolute show-stealer. Smoothly transitioning from deflecting projectiles to an enemy-slicing swift strike for cutting the enemy team in half with a few swipes from his Dragonblade feels like reaching a state of backflipping nirvana. When things don’t work out, however, and his deflect ends in the middle of a fight that he used all his other cooldowns to start, it feels like reaching a state of nirvana just in time to be knocked unconscious by a backflipping show dog: briefly invigorating, then cosmically embarrassing.

His abilities are:

  • Shuriken
  • Cyber-Agility
  • Deflect
  • Swift Strike
  • Ultimate: Dragonblade

Hanzo

The great lesson Hanzo wants to learn is: don’t try and kill your brother. A shame he figured that out a little too late – also, a shame he wasn’t very good at it, or now he wouldn’t have to spend every mission waiting for his cyber-ninja brother’s stupid arrow-deflecting move to stop just so he can shoot him in the head and get back to pushing carts in peace. A regular, relatable shame indeed.

Hanzo’s supposed superpowers are using robot legs to climb walls and dash through the air, and also being able to summon two of his family’s spirit dragons when he fires an arrow, who will then proceed to move forever in the arrow’s direction devouring everything in their path. His real superpower, however, is headshots. His headshots really hurt, and feel amazing to pull off.

His abilities are:

  • Storm Bow
  • Storm Arrows
  • Sonic Arrow
  • Lunge
  • Wall Climb
  • Ultimate: Dragonstrike

Junkrat

In a world where Australia is exactly the same as it is today except a nuclear fusion explosion also gave a few people invulnerability to bombs, Junkrat, one of said bombproof citizens, roams the wasteland blowing stuff up and robbing people with his BFF Roadhog, and we love that for him.

The dude just loves blowing stuff up. His gun shoots frag grenades. He can hurl remote mines at people. He has a tire strapped to his back that is also a remote control bomb. Heck, if you kill him in-game, he drops a few bombs behind him – even in death, he’s just all about the bomb. It’s perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy then that playing as him is a blast.

His abilities are:

  • Frag Launcher
  • Concussion Mine
  • Steel Trap
  • Total Mayhem
  • Ultimate: Rip-tire

Mei

Despite Soldier: 76’s best efforts, the honour of Overwatch’s most Captain America-like hero goes to Mei for similarly getting cryogenically frozen and waking up to find most people she knew from her team had already died. Somehow, despite that, she’s above and beyond the most optimistic and maybe even the most heroic on the roster – so, tough luck, Soldier.

While Overwatch 2 removes from Mei’s blaster the power to freeze enemies to the spot, she still deals a tonne of damage, and her kit is still one of the most unique in the game. Her power to create ice walls to divide the playing field, or turn into an ice pop to heal herself and cancel incoming damage, makes her playstyle feel very creatively rewarding once you get the hang of it.

Her abilities are:

  • Endothermic Blaster
  • Secondary Fire: Icicle
  • Cryo-Freeze
  • Ice Wall
  • Ultimate: Blizzard

Pharah

In gameplay, Pharah falls under ‘easy to understand, nigh impossible to master’ – even at the top tier, the best Pharah players can have remarkably bad days, all because she’s just so demanding as a hero. You will constantly need to monitor her stingy jetpack fuel while aiming her rockets at foes, while also being careful to stay out of enemy eyelines, lest they swat her from the skies like a very impressively dressed gnat.

Still, get a handle on her even a little bit and feel catharsis like you’ve never known, where suddenly enemies that would sponge bullets just disappear beneath a barrage of raining death. Just make sure to put some distance between Pharah and her rockets – she’s not Junkrat, you know.

Her abilities are:

  • Rocket Launcher
  • Hover Jets
  • Jump Jet
  • Concussive Blast
  • Ultimate: Barrage

Reaper

Don’t fear the Reaper – beneath that spooky mask lies a gentle soul, guiding all who come his way with an outstretched hand and a patient smile. Not in the Overwatch lore, of course, where he’s an unyielding psychotic murderer, but certainly when it comes to teaching newcomers how to fall in love with the game.

Reaper is remarkably simple to understand – get close to your enemies and shoot them with his dual shotguns. He can flank easily with his shadow step move, and peel away with his wraith form, and it all makes for quite the healing experience, to be honest – and not just because landing any damage with his shotguns also heals him.

His abilities are:

  • Hellfire Shotguns
  • The Reaping
  • Shadow Step
  • Wraith Form
  • Ultimate: Death Blossom

Sojourn

Sojourn was the first character revealed to be joining the roster come Overwatch 2, finally bringing to Overwatch some representation for a too-long neglected demographic: Canadians. She comes armed to the teeth with a railgun that lets her pull off long-ranged headshots, as well as rocket legs that let her slide around and reach high spots with minimal effort.

For a detailed rundown of the best tips and tricks for playing this cybernetic commando, check out our Sojourn guide.

Her abilities are:

  • Railgun
  • Disruptor Shot
  • Power Glide
  • Ultimate: Overclock

Soldier: 76

Soldier: 76 is a shooty man who shoots real good. He shoots with bullets, he shoots with rockets, he can even shoot with his eyes closed if you use his ultimate. Not only does he shoot, but he also runs. Use his legs and his gun in combination to shoot, run, and win the game.

Alright, there’s a bit more to it than that. Soldier really only works on maps where he can gain the high ground, otherwise, he’s a sitting duck. Figure out the fastest route to get his legs somewhere high, and use his biotic field to hold that position a little longer if it’s effectively putting pressure on the enemy team.

His abilities are:

  • Heavy Pulse Rifle
  • Sprint
  • Biotic Field
  • Helix Rockets
  • Ultimate: Tactical Visor

Sombra

Going into Overwatch 2 has seen a few changes to how Sombra, everyone’s favourite hacker, interacts with her opponents. She now no longer needs to leave invisibility to hack foes, meaning she has the option to zip away unseen or even sneakily stick around after pulling it off.

Her hack also doesn’t completely strip characters of their powers, merely pausing them for a single second, though in compensation, hacked enemies can now be tracked by the whole team for a while, and Sombra deals extra damage to them with her machine pistol.

All-in-all, these changes make Sombra a little less dominant in terms of pick-rate, but keep that essential hacker flair that made her a perennial favourite among fans.

Her abilities are:

  • Machine Pistol
  • Translocator
  • Stealth
  • Hack
  • Opportunist
  • Ultimate: EMP

Symmetra

If you played Overwatch before June 2018, you might find a lot has changed about Symmetra. Her photon projector used to lock onto targets and ramp up into an arching kill beam, she used to have a lot more turrets to dispense, and she used to be able to summon a shield at will until Sigma sort of stole it.

Now, she plays very differently. Her beam is very like Zarya’s, except it ramps up the longer it stays on shields/enemies. Her ultimate, which used to be the ability to summon a teleporter for her team at spawn, has been replaced with a massive arena-dividing shield, while her teleporter is now on a cooldown and can be summoned at will to create secret pathways for your team to sneak into better positions.

Her turrets are still very annoying to deal with though, so all-in-all it’s definitely the same ol’ Symm.

Her abilities are:

  • Photon Projector
  • Sentry Turret
  • Teleporter
  • Ultimate: Photon Barrier

Torbjörn

One of two Swedes in the Overwatch roster who can triumph over foes without firing a single bullet, Torbjörn trumps his daughter Brigitte in this regard by doing it without even having to fight at all. With his trusty turret, sometimes all Torb needs to do to get play of the game is simply watch his machines do all the work.

Granted, he’s also a lot of fun to play if you take him seriously. His rivet gun can headshot opponents so long as you account for its drooping arc, and he can cover the floor in armour-melting magma with his ultimate, making him a great choice for controlling space on a map. Just keep an eye out on snipers, he’s remarkably easy to headshot himself.

His abilities are:

  • Rivet Gun
  • Forge Hammer
  • Deploy Turret
  • Overload
  • Ultimate: Molten Core

Tracer

Overwatch’s mascot Tracer can be one of the trickiest heroes to master, simply because she demands an awful lot from the player. Her time-skipping blinks can be a lot of fun to get used to, and nobody’s going to say no thanks to any power that lets you shave off seconds of damage, but it’s in how you’re forced to play the character in combat that often loses players.

Tracer’s pulse pistols and short-range pulse bomb demand her to play up-close and personal with her opponents, while her exceptionally low health means she can’t afford to stay still for too long or she’ll be killed immediately. She stands to benefit from one less tank shield getting in the way in Overwatch 2, but don’t be surprised if she remains something of a niche pick.

Her abilities are:

  • Pulse Pistols
  • Blink
  • Recall
  • Ultimate: Pulse Bomb

Widowmaker

Don’t let the cartoony aesthetic fool you, if you want to know why there hasn’t been a for-kids animated series of the Overwatch cast, you have only Widowmaker’s backstory to blame. Kidnapped, tortured, programmed to kill her Overwatch-affiliated husband, then eventually turned into the blue-skinned sniper responsible for countless efficient murders we know and love today. Fun for all the family!

In-game, Widow does one thing and one thing well: headshots. Land one on almost any damage or support hero and count them out of the next fight. The tricky part is that you need good aim, good tracking skills, and an awareness of when to move out of harm’s way to get maximum value from her. Achieve that, and you’ll be a threat on every line-up.

Her abilities are:

  • Widow’s Kiss
  • Sniper Mode
  • Grappling Hook
  • Venom Mine
  • Ultimate: Infra-Sight

Overwatch 2 Heroes – Support

Ana

Style icon Ana (seriously, check out the ‘Cabana’ skin) is one of the founding members of Overwatch, the second-in-command to Jack “call me Soldier: 76 when this is all over” Morrison, and absentee mother to her daughter, Fareeha “maybe if you were around once in a while I could fall sleep without this flight armour on, mom” Amari.

Ana can be an absolute blast to play, healing teammates near-and-afar, and changing the tide of a fight completely with her sleep dart and no-heals-allowed biotic grenade. Don’t be surprised if people constantly try to take her out first. Left to her own devices, any Ana has the power to dominate in Overwatch.

Her abilities are:

  • Biotic Rifle
  • Sleep Dart
  • Biotic Grenade
  • Ultimate: Nano Boost

Baptiste

Joining the roster in 2019, Baptiste made an instant splash with his sweet energy scouter and ability to halt the natural consequences of bullets going through heads via frisbee. Sure, you might want to talk about his cool jumpy boots or rad gun that shoots both bullets and healing grenades, but for most people, they just couldn’t get enough of that entropy-defeating frisbee.

The dude has a robot companion that creates windows of extra damage for his entire team, not to mention the power to heal everyone around with a squeeze of his glove, but sure, fine, fixate on the magic frisbee that stops death from happening. The Blizzard team went to such lengths to design a cool character from top-to-toe, but his other traits might as well be tears in the rain next to that stupid, game-changing, strategically crucial to master frisbee.

His abilities are:

  • Biotic Launcher
  • Regenerative Burst
  • Exo Boots
  • Immortality Field
  • Ultimate: Amplification Matrix

Brigitte

Brigitte, Torbjörn’s daughter and Reinhardt’s squire, completely destroyed the game of Overwatch when she joined the roster in early 2018. One of the core picks during the infamous ‘GOAT’ meta, the combination of her passive healing for teammates every time she dealt damage and her stun-locking shield bash made her dominate play as an invincible shield maiden of chaos.

Today, she’s a little less powerful, but still a lot of fun to play. Her whip shot can knock enemies into pits in an infinitely satisfying slapstick manner, and while her shield bash won’t stun foes right out of their ultimates anymore, it’s still fun to zip across the map with it for better flailing and whipping positions.

Her abilities are:

  • Rocket Flail
  • Inspire
  • Repair Pack
  • Whip Shot
  • Barrier Shield
  • Shield Bash
  • Ultimate: Rally

Lúcio

The international superstar and cereal mascot of the hero roster, Lúcio has become something of a mainstay support pick for high-level Overwatch games. While other supports offer various different means to deal damage and pump healing into their teammates, Lúcio offers a benefit unlike anyone else: speed.

In high-level competitive play, nothing could be more valuable than those precious frames between life and death. As if that weren’t enough, Lúcio avoids dying easily with his wall ride ability and gets free kills booping enemies into death pits thanks to his Sonic Amplifier. A tough playstyle to master, granted, but an infinitely rewarding one.

His abilities are:

  • Sonic Amplifier
  • Wall Ride
  • Crossfade
  • Amp It Up
  • Soundwave
  • Ultimate: Sound Barrier

Mercy

Don’t let her angelic visage and healing-oriented kit fool you – in the right player’s hands, Mercy can truly be an undying angel of death. The misconception comes from how exactly Mercy deals damage, as the real work isn’t done by her own hands, but in the damage buff she offers her teammates through her Caduceus staff.

Pull off Mercy’s secret super jump technique (crouch + guardian angel + jump as she rises meeting her target) and enemies will constantly have a hard time killing her. Once mastered, Mercy becomes the ultimate support – capable of keeping teammates perpetually alive (even after death) and giving them a great boost to their damage output.

Her abilities are:

  • Caduceus Staff
  • Caduceus Blaster
  • Regeneration
  • Guardian Angel
  • Resurrect
  • Angelic Descent
  • Ultimate: Valkyrie

Moira

By far and away the easiest hero in the game to play, Moira does quite a lot with very little effort. A scientist obsessed with experimentation, her biotic grasp gives her the ability to heal her teammates or drain the life of her enemies – neither of which requires much aim, making her a great pick for new players getting used to the game.

If she’s in trouble, use her fade ability to quickly warp out of danger’s path, and remember she can also heal herself with her own biotic orbs and biotic grasp. Try and spray her gross healing juice when the team is bunched up together to heal the whole lot in one big gross shower of juice.

Her abilities are:

  • Biotic Grasp
  • Biotic Orb
  • Fade
  • Ultimate: Coalescence

Zenyatta

With all the science fiction and near-future tech of the Overwatch universe, one has to ask: where does religion fit in? The answer is in Zenyatta, an omnic who uses spirit orbs to beat people up, and occasionally – very occasionally – maybe even heal people too.

Zenyatta’s strengths as a support lie in his damage-dealing abilities more than his healing potential. His discord orbs latch onto enemies, forcing them to take extra damage any time they’re hit; meanwhile, his primary fire orbs deal solid damage. Just remember he’s supposed to be a robot of the cloth, so maybe use the odd healing orb too, eh?

His abilities are:

  • Orb of Destruction
  • Orb of Discord
  • Orb of Harmony
  • Ultimate: Transcendence

overwatch heroes kiriko in action

Kiriko

Kiriko hails from Japan and grew up training alongside Hanzo and Genji. She is a protector and support hero with abilities that focus on healing.

She’s also extremely mobile and can use this to stay out of enemy hands while buffing her teammates. Kiriko is aided by a cute spirit fox too, which can’t hurt matters.

Her abilities are:

  • Kunai
  • Swift Step
  • Protection Suzu
  • Kitsune Rush

That’s it for our guide to all the Overwatch 2 heroes, though make sure to check out our Overwatch tier list to see where we rank the heroes and their effectiveness in the live game as we count down the days to the Overwatch 2 release date.