Overwatch 2 Hero Bans Bring Changes for Sombra, Zarya, and Others

Blizzard, the masterminds behind Overwatch 2, dropped this hero ban thing back in April. And yeah, if you play competitive at all—like in season 16?—you’ve probably caught on that a few characters keep getting the boot. Sombra, Zarya, Symmetra, Ana, Mercy. The usual suspects, right? Blizzard actually put out numbers about it, which is somehow both surprising and not.

Here’s the kicker: these bans might shake things up for those heroes in the long run. Rebalancing, tweaks—maybe they’re in the cards. It’s weird, though, isn’t it? Characters getting shunned like that.

Blizzard’s blog says Sombra tops the PC blacklist at 85% bans. Zarya’s not too far behind at 59%, with Doomfist chilling at 43%. Consoles? Sombra gets banned even more there, like 93%. Crazy. Then Zarya’s at 57% and Symmetra lags at 23%. It’s kind of a weird popularity contest in reverse.

Gavin Winter, one of Blizzard’s senior, uh, systems designing folks, mentions they’ve been digging into this ban data for, what, a month? It’s all to mess around with balance in Overwatch 2. If a hero gets picked for bans too much or does too well on a specific map? They might level the playing field a bit. But then again, sometimes they change heroes no one even picks just for kicks. But he says, don’t expect changes based just on the data yet—it’s not the sole decider. Makes you wonder what does decide, doesn’t it?

Someone like Sombra being banned in 85% of competitive games? How’s that even fun? Imagine putting time into mastering someone and almost never getting to actually play them. Frustrating, right?

Even with these little oddities in banning, apparently Blizzard’s good with how things are shaking out. Winter thinks the system’s mostly hitting the mark. They’re looking forward to how Hero Bans will morph, especially when they spill the beans on hero win and pick rates.

Oh, and heads up for season 17 coming in late June. They’re adding some map-voting twist, so players will steer matches a bit more. Should be interesting to see how that pans out.