I don't got one of those just a fun fact, the term poke came from fighting games like street fighter or Tekken and means a safe fast attack that usually deals little damage and sometimes require your opponent to take a risk to deal with
Even though it's technically correct, please don't tell people that Lucio can work in dive. 90% of the time when a player picks Lucio "for dive", it means they are going to ignore callouts and the team in order to maximum W 100% of the time and feed.
Yeah Have you not heard of Reapers most recent rework: he shoots sniper ammo and headshots automatically teleport him to to the enemy and gets his shotguns back but after 2 seconds he recalls back like tracer.
If I pick Reaper in a poke comp I'll probably just stick to the more campy playstyle, probably hiding around corners near where my teams gonna be so if divers show up then I completely go off on them. That's pretty much all you can do as Reaper in that situation really, just wait for the enemies to come to you and your team up close if they manage to. Which is why playing Reaper on poke works better on defense.
This video is actually insane. I play all roles and sometimes I don't understand why the team just isn't working but now I have an idea how to adapt depending on what the team is. I guess I'm a dive and brawl player hahaha
Points from video: Key: ++ Good +* Good ; if played well +- Usable ; but be careful -- Not recommended SUPPORTS Zenyatta : ++Poke, +-Dive/Brawl ; focus fire Discorded target, is liable to die by himself Bap : ++Poke, ++Brawl, +-Dive ; little team synergy Mercy : ++Poke, +*Dive ; with Pharah/Echo, --Brawl Lucio : ++Brawl, +*Dive ; mid, can bodyguard his support, --Poke Moira : ++Brawl, ++Dive, --Poke Ana : ++Brawl, ++Dive, +*Poke ; anti nades Kiriko : ++Dive, +*Brawl ; Kitsune and short range heals, --Poke no consistent damage like Zen or Bap Brig : Anti-Dive, Half-brawl half-poke Lifeweaver : ++Dive/Brawl to bailout bad engages, +- Poke, maybe good with snipers TANKS DVA : ++Dive, +-Brawl, --Poke Doom : ++Dive, +-Brawl, --Poke Junker : ++Brawl, +*Dive ; commanding shout --Poke Orisa : +*Dive/Brawl/Poke Ram : ++Brawl, ++Dive, ++Poke Rein : ++Brawl, +*Dive ; map dependent, +- Poke ; taxi for the DPS Roadhog : ++Poke, +-Brawl ; Ana counters, --Dive Sigma : ++Poke, +-Brawl ; hand suckie, --Dive Winston : ++Dive, --Brawl, --Poke Ball : ++Dive, --Brawl, --Poke Zarya : +-Brawl ; slow start with low charge, +-Dive ; bubble diving teammates, +-Poke ; hard against enemy with many hitscans
If 80% of the playerbase watched this and understood it, the average level of play in comp would jump 30% or more. Crazy how much composition determines a winning team in ranked Thanks as always yeatle :)
I agree. i recognized the comp as soon OW came out in 2016 but im kind of flabbergasted that the most of the player base have no idea how to play comp or play to win...in 2023.
i feel actual heart wrenching pain whenever i see someone choose life weaver explicitly after seeing me choose mercy, even worse when the team can also do well with a mercy and they just throw in a life weaver. bro.
As a brig main who talks to other brig mains, she is either called an aggressive brawl hero or a defensive poke hero and it's really situational, very dependent on who your other support is. However, it's probably likely you want to be defensive with her, since she doesn't have as much survivability as people think.
You can make 293,760 different teams in overwatch 2 (in role queue, if you do open queue that number goes up a LOT). It's quite a simple calculation, actually. You pick one tank, two dps and two supports, and you cant have 2 of the same hero, so you do all tanks (12, including mauga) times all dps (17), times all dps minus one (16), times all supports (10), times all supports minus one (9)
Brig to me is more of variation comp hero, for example in traditional dive brig is normally not a great pick but if your team is running a deep dive variation (ball, sombra, tracer) brig is pretty good for protecting the other support. and in a standard brawl comp brig isn't great but if you are running a junkerqueen variation she is a pretty strong pick since she is good at keeping junkerqueen up..
If you run dive hard, it’d be better to pick Kiriko to follow up, and she doesn’t need much protection. For Junkerqueen, mostly people pick Lucio for double speed boost, and Brig is not enough to keep Tank up. Rather than tying to a comp, it’d be easier to say you play Brig whenever the other support is Ana/Bap, who usually position themselves far from everyone.
@@Soft_Ghost I was about to say "bUt WhaT aBoUt bRiG/ZeN" since Zen could really use the protection every now and then....but then I realized how shitty the amount of healing there would be for the rest of the team lol
@@Brandon-br7tcit's just another variation of deep dive. Brig is good in any ball tracer variation, and zen will help melt any targets while brig makes up for the weaknesses of dive
I am a Masters player with a thousand plus hours in the game playing since the beginning and for some reason my brain didn't fully understand what poke comps were until now. I understood it gameplay wise I guess from knowing when "we should play a comp for shield break or drawing out their resources *or poking*" or "this comp wants to hold s key left click and melt them and kite around and/or play slow" but I never attached the phrase poke comp to them fully I guess 😂
I'm pretty sure in Overwatch 1 instead of calling it "poke comps" people would call it "bunker comps" with OW1 Orisa and Baptiste or something (maybe Orisa Hog as a shield break comp)......and of course the mighty double shield comps with Orisa and Sigma... 😒
@@Brandon-br7tc well bunker comps were also a bunker. Sometimes they were anchored down and couldn't move as much or more accurately could move a lot but needed to time it around shield deployables too if needed. Think bastion pirate ship on payload junkertown even as the most mobile version of bunker comp. Think bunker comp on illio well orisa roadhog pulling into well combo they could rotate around all day but they were still anchored at times. Poke comps are a little more free form at times
@@willwunsche6940 Fair enough, now that I think about it there seemed to have been both poke and bunker comps in OW1. They do both share a similar bursting-down-the-enemy-from-long-to-mid-range style.
I recently got back to OW2 and I'm trying to practice each one of these "archetypes" in my QPs and tank role queues. Will pay more attention to my supports to adjust my playstyle even more and to see if I can improve my synergy with them and play accordingly.
brig isn’t only a counter pick covering comps weaknesses, shes pretty good in dive and poke pretty bad with brawl. but her main power where she really shines is in hybrid comps wether its brawl-poke or poke-dive or dive-brawl she does best in all of them. Brawl dive example doomfist tracer cassidy or sojurn brig ana. brawl poke example junkerqueen genji sojurn or ashe brig lucio and poke-dive example dva tracer echo or ashe brig zen
S4 changes made her pretty shit regardless. Nerfed pack range affect her neutral a lot in these situations and her new ult is lame af where you get value once per 10 game if you are lucky.
@@musicxxa6678 She gets punished by certain characters and can punish other characters. Her S4 changes were a net buff but it also made her a harder hero to play since you need to cook during your ult. Brig Ult can now consistently win fights, something it couldn't do before, however, it requires you to make good plays during it to get real value from it.
Brig is honestly a pretty good rush hero, however, she gets hard punished if the enemy team is playing a rein or ram comp. She has the flexibility to frontline well with the tank, with an especially good paring with JQ, and she can peel really well for the other support.
@@musicxxa6678 her pack nerf was such a red flag why is repair pack the thing they nerf when its the most engaging part of her kit brig is one of those heroes to control a position and dynamically assist divers or whatever with repair packs but i know they wont buff it back because “tHe piCk rAtE tHe wiN ratE 🤓” Stupid philosophy that blizzard uses. but her new ult is honestly good
You’re doing gods work dude. I’ve been watching a lotta overwatch tutorials lately and they always be saying stuff like “dive is based” but they never tell me what dive is 😭 luckily this video exists
Thank you so much for this video, you're the GOAT 🙏🏼 I've been trying to understand compositions more in depth recently but haven't been able to find anything really talking about comps. You explained everything so clearly, amazing video 💛
great content, I think you may have understated some of the "inbetween" comps that exist, like not all comps are squarely in these categories and some heroes excel at these kinds of comps. Like dva is a great example. She can dive really well, that's what she does, but she can be clean up for poke comps pretty effectively, just using dm to counter dive and taking duels with dps in a poke v poke situation, denying space. She used to be in rush in OW1 but it really, really, doesn't work now as she really sucks when she's face tanking. Similar things can be said about ball and winston. Doom fist is more on the brawl side as his block does keep him in the fight long enough for your team to win a brawl, and he can stun key targets that are attacking targets in a brawl. The amount of "inbetween-ness" generally depends on your dps, like people who are one tricks forcing mei/symm in a doom comp. It really puts into perspective which heroes a tank player should learn if they want to be competitive. One all arounder is probably required, preferably a good one like Ram, but Orisa and Rein are options. If you one trick you have to really know each type of comp and your weakness in each because your team might not play around you.
Dva is one of those heroes that if the player is good enough they can work in a lot of situations, however she is unquestionably worst in poke compared to brawl and dive. Idk what rank you're in but dva is a major liability in high rank on poke maps even with perfect matrix usage if the teams are even remotely balanced.
I think Yeatle is right, it really depends on the supports. Like Doom with Mei Sym, the Main support can choose to play around it with Lucio to make the comp more brawl, Mercy pocket the other dps to make the comp more Poke, or Zen to play around Doom and make the comp more Dive. It doesn't really fall neatly into the 3 catagories, but the off heal role has a pretty big say in what the comp does.
I haven't played OW in a hot minute due to a setup change and bad internet, so this was pretty helpful to learn about the comp and playstyle changes in OW2. Now I need to either learn to play tank without a counterpart to enable or play support
"Counters" don't really come into play when you talk about entire team comps. It's almost entirely about how you well you play the comp and how good the comp is on the map. Like if you're playing poke and you switch from Zen to Mercy because the enemy is running dive, Merc is still playable with a poke comp. Lower rank players REALLY give importance to countering but you shouldn't try to switch entire comps to "counter" the enemy team. You make individual hero swaps, but not team swaps
Completely true, I was thinking that the main factor in deciding which comp to go with isn't what your supports are playing. It is which map you're on. And for lower ranks the best bet is usually just playing your best hero.
@Edwin Holmer which is funny because most players in low ranks consider "your best hero" as the one you deal the most damage/healing/kills on. Then they become bastion/reaper/junkrat/mercy/moira/reinhardt 1 tricks. And get stuck in platinum/diamond.
I really appreciate this video honestly. Been playing overwatch for like 5 years. I watch streamers every once in a while and I hear about these comps, but I never found an actual explanation for how they worked or who exactly is a brawl character or a rush character. I'm mostly a Mercy main, so I kinda picked up on a poke comp being good, however something really interesting happens at my rank. Rather than think about the goal of the comp, it's more about some arbitrary heal/second number my team expects. So Mercy/Zen, "We need a main healer!". I always found that odd cause for so long top 500 was just brig/zen. Thanks for the video. Overwatch needs more actual educational videos like this.
I think there needs to be a 4th comp category. I would call this ‘carrier or mothership’ comp. Both are based off of naval ship formations, which space fleets in movies are also based off of naval formations. So let me explain: 1) Zarya, Junker Queen, and Hog are all mediocre or awkward at any of the 3 established comps (dive/brawl/poke). The reason being that they don’t really make space for their team. They are excellent at taking space and being impossible to move off of space, but they do not make the space. These tanks are basically like DPS, and benefit from allied heroes playing in front of them, causing enemies to burn their resources. 2) like Motherships, they are in the middle of the formation, surround by quicker and more agile ships. The fighters are sent out ahead of them to wreak havoc, while the cruisers and mother ships power up their slow and powerful end game advance. It’s like the King and the royal guard, if the other concepts weren’t painting enough of a picture. This 4th comp I’m deeming ‘mothership’ comp, plays best with aggressive flanking dps. In Dive, you only need the tank and one dps to create chaos. So 2 people together are creating chaos. One person creating chaos normally means the one guy is on a suicide mission, so in a ‘mothership’ comp, you could get away with one flanker if it’s Tracer, but otherwise you want two dps that are comfortable playing in front of the tank, creating massive distraction, like gnats. 3) Zarya and Junker Queen have the ability to provide a little buff or save to their aggressive dps, especially Zarya, who has the hardest saves. Roadhog has no way to mitigate or buff his aggressive dps, but the chaos created allows for him to catch enemies unaware for easier hook kill combos. 4) I think that Rammatra could be played in this comp, simply because he has the versatility, and when he’s in his base form, he’s vulnerable to aggression, so having aggressive dps definitely benefits him. Ram we all know to be a poke/brawl hybrid, but he would prefer not having to mitigate cooldowns like the other tanks I think are ‘mothership’ comp tanks. 5) for supports, you need ones that can bail out aggressive squishies and in a way mitigate some cooldowns, and also get aggressive themselves. The ideal supports for this comp are: Lucio (almost a requirement for the type of tanks of this comp as this comp is a hybrid of dive and brawl) Kiriko, Lifeweaver, Brig, and you can make an argument for Ana. So you can see the supports are flexible. I didn’t put mercy in here, even though she could work, because other than Zarya, none of the other tanks will allow her to get a safe Rez off if one of the aggressive dps go down, but if you are running a Pharah or echo, by all means run a Mercy. Baptiste isn’t for this comp, as the type of dps that work in this comp don’t go well with Baptiste in many ways. Zen could work in this comp for the same reasons he worked in dive in the olden days. 6) The ideal dps for this comp are: Reaper, Tracer, Genji, Pharah, Echo, Sojourn, Soldier, and flank Junk rat. Basically anyone who makes the enemy have to look backwards, upwards, or off to the side works. You want your tank and supports have resources diverted from their direction.
This is one of the best videos I've ever seen existing team comps. I've been playing support and i can tell when what i play does not mesh with the team. It's explained perfectly.
Even if you know everything about the game you forget the essentials sometimes, I'm choosing my tank pick by the map i'm playing but never consider my support teammates and that's not the right way For exemple I instant lock Sigma on Havana because i know it's the most optimal map for poking BUT if my supports picks heroes optimal for dive or brawl, thean i SHOULD change my pick and playing with the strength of my team Thanks for that :D
Reaper has shotguns, so he wouldn’t be all that viable in poke. I’d say he’s more of a dive-brawl type character since he can teleport straight into the enemies faces and brawl short-range with his shotguns. Poke = long-range, decent/good damage Dive = bypassing the frontline enemies to go for back line instead; targeting supports and squishies (weak DPS like tracer, widow, etc) Brawl = short-range, but BIG damage. Frontline combat.
honestly this is the best way to put this into words, especially for people like me who don't look into all the specific nerd stuff like you said, I kinda have an idea of this already, but this video will definitely help friends and help me put this into words, great video really simple and easy to understand. honestly, support is the most important role I agree, in OW1 i'd definitely argue tank as it was a lot more about having crazy amounts of shielding from your two tanks and just being a juggernaut with roadhog, but now the best thing is to make your entire team a juggernaut as a support hero to take back the point or defend a large attack from the other team. it's really really difficult when you have people diving and you are playing Lucio, honestly i'd say that in OW2, your team literally lives and dies by the support, you don't have the crazy protection of tanks in OW1, and if your support aren't able to save you, then it's really tough, and in quick play (even at lower levels) you often see teams with bad support really struggle, while the team with supports healing a crazy amount dominate
this is amazing. Do you have or do you plan on making a video on countering? Like if the enemy team has a really frustrating Sombra, who should I switch to? etc.
i never understood compositions or really cared ngl, as long as im doing my job properly and my team is also doing their job properly then its a win in my book.
Doom is outclassed by practically every tank that specializes in brawl. Brawl tanks are categorized by their heavy sustain and consistent damage in a fight, two things Doom lacks heavily. His only form of sustain is an interruptible block that renders him nearly immobile (and the measly amount of health from his passive), meaning he has to back out of an engagement much faster than a Reinhardt, Zarya, JQ or Ramattra would have to, and his highest form of damage is from cooldowns which lacks consistency.
I low key miss old Orissa. Her range and ability to head shot is really good for suppressing the enemy. I know why she had to change but it's a playstyle I miss.
Except they didn't need to rework her, because all they needed to do was balance her around having a 7 or 8 second barrier cooldown so she can reposition often enough since she's the only tank in 5v5. Changing her barrier shape to allow for better coverage (closer to Winston's barrier) is also an option. I mean, if Doomfist can be a tank in his current state, then old Orisa is more than qualified to be a tank. We are definitely lacking ranged/poke tank options compared to brawl options. We need old Orisa back.
@@abhinandhari7812 depends on how you played old Orissa. If you only played behind her shield than yes it's a boring playstyle. If you softened them up from range than bullied them at close range it was really fun. In a tank duel situation she could've beat most other tanks if you knew how to counter their abilities and land your headshots. Another benefit she was the only tank that could suppress Pharah from range. It was so nice to see a Pharah peppering you and all you needed to do was to paint the area in bullets to force a retreat from a Pharah.
I would like the idea of recicle her kit for a new character, imagine Effi as a Support who makes shields and has cc and a Nano for the team as ult!! For the actual Orisa i think they can make the javaline spin duration longer so she can have more defensive potential or give her a new passive
@@bribriibribrii Orisa does not need longer abilities or more defensive power, she needs more damage and for discord orb to be removed from the game. Right now it's hard to confirm kills with Orisa, the damage drop off range nerf basically removed all of the lethality she had in season 2. All she really has going for her now is that she's hard to kill - with the caveat that no tank is hard to kill with zen in the game. With Zen being so good Orisa becomes insanely bad since Orisa has very little counterplay against him and relies on her ability to stay alive when face tanking.
This is probably the most helpful video I have seen to get me playing better. Thank you so much. I’ll just start biting the bullet and pick heroes based on what my team wants to run to help the synergy.
I kind of already know some of the main compositions (poke, brawl/rush, dive) but this video needs to be spread around, so I'm liking and commenting for the algorithm
I think for most of us you just need to choose who you're comfortable playing, unless some super important change needs to happen (like Bastion is there),
i’m very used to poke, as i don’t trust my aim enough to charge in in brawl. however, i’m glad to learn about the other styles, and this is a great guide to them. thanks!
749,398 would be right for no role lock since 41!/(5!(41-5)!) is how you got that number? You should really do this calculation for each role then multiply them together if I remember correctly?? somwthing like 200 combos I reckon 🤙
To sum up: zen: poke, (but can play in dive and brawl but not optimal). bap: best at poke, good at brawl. (but can play in dive) mercy: poke, and dive with phara or echo. (bad at brawl) lucio: best at brawl, can be used in dive. (bad at poke) moira: brawl and dive. (bad at poke) ana: best at brawl, but can be used in dive and somewhat in poke. kiriko: best at dive, can be played at brawl. (bad at poke) brig: brawl or anti dive. lifeweaver: currently dive and brawl. (bad at poke)
This video enables me to focus more on self improvement rather than hating my team for playing wrong. I just switch to a champ that accompanies their playstyle more (a playstyle I was unable to recognize before) instead of trying to poke with Lucio (my main).
I think versatility is huge. Not every player has the same playstyle and teams dont often synergize. A Ram, echo, and kiriko for instance can make any team more flexible as they can poke and dive equally well and can even "brawl" for brief periods.
Not trynna be 🤓 that guy... but one caveat I think yeatle should mention is that these "comps" should be taken with a grain of salt for the majority of players. Sure, the general concepts of building a team comp around dive, brawl and poke CAN apply to some average players - I'd say up until masters (if that), most players will struggle to carry these out effectively and the game usually devolves into a fuck fest. Most players should play their best hero imo and not worry too much about these comps. For scrims and coordinated team play though, this is a must-learn vid.
Using this to inform your picks can definitely help at lower ranks. Even if the team isn't coordinated, you picking a hero that works well with your tanks pick can completely change the value you provide to the team at all ranks. Rather than using this information to try to build a proper dive, rush or poke comp, you can use it to not pick hero's who have no synergies with what the team is playing. I think it's especially important for DPS players to use the information in the video to inform their picks and flex to different types of DPS.
@@meer7872 (*after writing*: fuck me sorry this is an essay, i'm clearly passionate about this lol, because I've been through it - have a read 😅😅) Yeah I somewhat agree, outside of scrims and coordinated team play, I truly believe these COMPS are practically meaningless, though I think the synergies you mention though are a bit more relevant. To make these comps TRULY work, everyone has to know their role effectively in terms of things like enemy (and friendly) positioning, cooldown management, engament timings, eb-and-flow, map control, ult tracking (and making decisions based on that), target focus.... there's loads to make these COMPS work. The inherent SYNERGIES between heroes can come a bit more naturally, I suppose. But my point is you think little jimmy sat in gold is gonna ult track 5 ults, position effectively, not waste cooldowns, hit shots, shot-call, and play his role as a tracer, for eg, perfectly in a dive comp? fuck no... but neither are the enemies... that's why I think comps don't matter as much, he can play whatever, and if he's good can still have success (look at any unranked to gm ever). Now with regards to these COMPs... If you watch GM 5 games and top 10 games, they're MILES apart. The top players will know their roles in the comps and execute well, but the barely-GM 5 player will mostly struggle in a higher lobby. They're both GM, though? Exactly... it's hard to apply these concept correctly, but can absolutely be learned with time and deliberate practice :) (Personal relevant story...) Having started in bronze back in 2016 to now playing with OWL players (like the GOATs super, pelican, and happy the other day), I have spent time and marinated in EVERY SINGLE rank, so have loads of experience. I decided to otp Bap (in 2019) after coming back from a long ow break and went from plat to top500 using him. Now, I am GM on DPS (from barely diamond) and Masters on tank (from plat) after going back to those roles for a bit after my Bap journey; i can play other supports quite well as well. I think there's a benefit to getting good at one (or maximum a handful) of heroes... like really good.... it'll teach you a lot of GENERAL concepts about the game, from there you can apply it quite easily I reckon to other heroes/roles.
@@willmcclard206 but if you're not good at said hero you're going to swap to, then you might actually HINDER your chances. I think (more so for DPS players), you should choose 2-3 heroes MAX to cycle between that work with most synergies and get good at those. With support/tank, you can do the same... or probably even otp to improve as fast as possible, then transition to other heroes. (see my other reply 😉)
Yippee! Hip hip hooray! Wahoo! Thanks for all the info, admittedly I had no idea what a poke comp was for the longest time but now I'm all good thanks to the yeatlemeister
That comment about life weaver platforms-I spent a whole game getting dragged across the map by a lw to stand on a platform where I had no sightline and then was dropped into the middle of a brawl.
Only thing I would add is that Zen and Brig are also good dive supports. Zen can discord a target to assist your divers in their duels and offer focus fire incentives, not to mention dive play style was pioneered in OW1 Season 3 where you only had Ana/Zen capable of healing long range. Ana & Zen are the OG dive support picks. Zen can also peel for his Ana with his high damage and although his mobility is bad he can be a scary target for dive heroes in isolated duels when he's being pocketed by his Ana. Zen can also pocket dive heroes like Genji, Tracer, Dva, Winston with his harmony orb. Even though it's relatively low healing over time it can help secure a kill in combination with discord. Brig's passive healing range and her pack healing also have insanely good range as well as her knock back ability. She's also really good at defending her other support (usually Ana) with her shield, knock back and passive healing. Even though her damage is very low, she can be a general nuisance for divers or flankers. Since Brig is weak into brawl -- she dies too fast and her shield is useless into melee damage -- and very mediocre at poke -- her shield just takes damage for no reason and breaks easily, leaving her vulnerable -- her best position is at her maximum healing range which depending on the map can cover the entire objective.
