Lúcio is Overwatch’s most popular hero: Here’s how the characters rank per platform

Overwatch’s success cannot be doubted. At 10 million players and counting, it’s been one of the year’s most popular and critically acclaimed games.

The multiplayer-only offering is getting a competitive mode in the coming weeks, which should add some much-needed variety to the competitiveness of the experience, with Quick Play currently acting merely as a randomised multiplayer offering across a few modes and maps.

Despite Overwatch’s perceived shallowness on the mode and map front, it continues to be incredibly popular. I’ve put in close to 40 hours alone, and that’s not counting the hours I put into the open beta. Combined, I’m closing in on 100 hours.

My Hero usage is fairly spread out across a handful of heroes, with Hanzo, Mei, Soldier: 76, D.Va, and Reaper among my most used. I’m yet to play as Symmetra, but I probably should.

My list of favourite Heroes seems to coincide with the most played Heroes across the entire Overwatch community on all three platforms. The statistics are rather interesting.

PC

On PC, Lucio is the most popular Hero, chosen 7.32% of the time. He’s closely followed by Solider: 76 (6.78%) and Mercy (6.74%), with Pharah (6.38%), McCree (6.32%) and Reinhardt (6.27%) rounding out the top 6 who get chosen more than 6% of the time.

Down the bottom of the list is Symmetra (1.88%), Zenyatta (2%), Winston (2.7), Zarya (2.79%), and Bastion (2.95%).

What the stats tell us is that the Overwatch experience on PC is very different to that on console (for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain). Fascinatingly, while fairly modest in popularity, or downright unpopular comparatively,Torbjörn and Symmetra are the most successful across all platform, butTorbjörn’s success on consoles demonstrates how badly the versions on those platforms need tweaking in regards to tracking and hit boxes, not to mention the range ofTorbjörn’s turrets relative to those gameplay fundamentals.

Here’s the full list of characters, listed from most popular to least popular.

• Lúcio – 7.32%
• Solider: 76 – 6.78%
• Mercy – 6.74%
• Pharah – 6.38%
• McCree – 6.32%
• Reinhardt – 6.27%
• Widowmaker – 5.99%
• Junkrat – 5.82%
• Genji – 5.78%
• Reaper – 5.39%
• Roadhog – 4.77
• Hanzo – 4.76%
• Tracer – 4.39%
• D.Va – 3.97%
• Torbjörn – 3.79%
• Mei – 3.22%
• Bastion – 2.95%
• Zarya – 2.79%
• Winston – 2.7%
• Zenyatta – 2%
• Symmetra – 1.88%

 

Xbox One

It’s a similar story on Xbox One, with the usual suspects at the top and the bottom of the list. Torbjörn, however, is used 5.46% of the time, almost 2% more than he is used on PC. This correlates with his significantly higher winrate on consoles, as players are choosing him more often because his turrets are so hard to take down while playing using a controller. Tracer also has a major boost on console, with a 1.6% increase in popularity on Xbox One.

Here’s the full list.

• Lúcio – 6.53%
• Soldier: 76 – 6.4%
• Mercy – 6.16%
• Tracer – 6.07%
• Reaper – 5.95%
• Genji – 5.79%
• Pharah – 5.65%
• Reinhardt – 5.55%
• Junkrat – 5.52%
• Torbjörn – 5.46%
• Hanzo – 5.33%
• McCree – 5.09%
• Widowmaker – 4.61%
• D.Va – 4.4%
• Roadhog – 4.27%
• Mei – 3.63%
• Bastion – 3.2%
• Zenyatta – 3.09%
• Zarya – 2.51%
• Winston – 2.46%
• Symmetra – 2.33%

 

PS4

There’s not much different between PS4 and Xbox One when it comes to Hero popularity, although Junkrat and D.Va are chosen more often on the console. Roadhog, at only 3.66%, is far less popular on PS4 than he is on any other platform, which is interesting.

Here’s the full list.

• Lúcio – 7.3%
• Soldier: 76 – 6.26%
• Junkrat – 6.07%
• Reaper – 5.83%
• Mercy – 5.8%
• Tracer – 5.73%
• Reinhardt – 5.6%
• Torbjörn – 5.55%
• Pharah – 5.54%
• D.Va – 5.33%
• Genji – 5.31%
• Hanzo – 4.72%
• McCree – 4.61%
• Widowmaker – 4.35%
• Mei – 3.69%
• Roadhog – 3.66%
• Bastion – 3.31%
• Zenyatta – 3.1%
• Zarya – 2.9%
• Symmetra – 2.78%
• Winston – 2.56%

 

Overall Thoughts

I find it encouraging that two support characters in Lúcio and Mercy are consistently at the top across platforms, while the likes of Bastion and Torbjörn, two Heroes who can really shred through opponents, are mid-to-low range.

I’m not surprised by Symmetra’s and Winston’s consistent lack of popularity, with both being fairly challenging Heroes to manage, Symmetra more so. I’m also not surprised that her winrate is so high across platforms, as I think that only players that know how to use her do, and place her turrets rather effectively to hold out the enemy team.

Heroes like Genji, Reaper and Hanzo always find themselves in the mid-to-high range, which makes sense as they’re all all-round Heroes with solid attacking and defensive features. They’re probably the most balanced characters in the game.

Soldier: 76 is a character I am really warming to, and his fast, effective attacking range and defensive healing makes him a useful character on attack or defense.

Two characters that I think are significantly underutilised by the Overwatch community are Mei and Zenyatta. Mei is great fun to play as to troll the other team, but she can be difficult to master in the sense that you find ways not to directly block your teammates’ own fire and attacking strategy. Zenyatta is highly effective as both a defensive and attacking warrior, and has a solid mid-to-long range attack that can shred through enemies. His alt is probably my least favourite in the game, which unbalanced him a little, but his healing and damage abilities make him particularly useful.

What are your thoughts on how each platform’s community choose their Overwatch heroes? Vote in our poll below and sound off in the comments below!

Source: MasterOverwatch

 

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