Remember, this is not SKILL ceiling, but how powerful these heroes would be (non-meta specific, generally over a period of a few months) when played essentially PERFECTLY. We decided to not factor in the "perfect" mechanics of hitscan, as it's not really possible. This was also recorded prior to Hanzo's 1-shot returning, Zen Damage Buffs, Orisa Buffs, etc, and current high level meta definitely affects the viability of many of these heroes (Lucio is a good example of this).
You mention patch specific stuff at the end of your comment, yet elaborate that this is the state of power over a period of a few months not including meta specific content. Are you stating that this is assuming they're core role, strategies, and abilities remain relatively the same.
But then really ana can't be anywhere near S tbh since you can get countered pretty heavily on your nade and even your entire kit since you also lack mobility (so brig ana is forced and the enemy can play around that). Skill ceiling I agree full S, same for tracer, Winston but also Dva+Ball but not hero power when the hero can get countered pretty hard actually.
genji is such an interesting case to discuss like this because i think statistically and numbers wise (blade, shuriken damage etc) he isnt very strong on paper compared to a lot of other heroes but the amount of nuance he has and the insanely high skill ceiling allow him to punch significantly above his weight
i think thats cuz the average genji player is a one trick with thousands of hours and theyre used to the character being weaker than 90% of the cast so they kinda have to be better, dps doom back in ow1 was a similar case imo but genjis a harder character to play, i think one tricks will nearly always be better than flex players but they nerf themselves by picking a suboptimal character in a lot of situations, which is made even worse by picking a generally bad character like genji which is the difference between genji and tracer otps imo
@@joeschipper6465 its true, if you dont invest hundreds and hundreds of hours into him youre just not gonna find much value compared to almost any other dps, but when you invest those hours he can get on par or even eclipse others in value. i think its cool for his niche of being like THE hard character to play and just the feeling of doing good on him because of that is amazing but sometimes it is frustrating feeling like youre being held back
@@Pam234 the fact youre comparing Genji, one of the hardest characters in the game, to Reaper who is on the easier side of DPS just shows you're either baiting or genuinly don't know what youre talking about.
Juno is absolutely my new favourite support to play, however ana's kit is just so good, sometimes she's definitely needed. Like I've won games and got complimentary by switching to ana, just because the enemy mauga was too stupid to switch or get a kirkio lol.
It baffles me how long a 100% block on healing has lasted, the polarizing decision on character power is what makes the counters so prominent and ultimately gives the game less character/player expression. On top of that it does 90 damage as well and 90 healing! just bonkers, you're already getting 50% more healing and damage potential for the next X seconds!
Imagine an opposite tier list, where value to low skill is ranked, which heroes give the most value with the least input. Moira is S tier there and she's alone in that tier. Braindead hero.
its not just a heroes skill ceiling, its how much value they get from reaching that theoretical skill ceiling. doom, while fun to learn and difficult to execute techs, doesnt get much value from them that a dva could get much easier and stronger
I'm confused, sometimes he talks about perfect comps like with ball, but with bap, if comp isn't good, he's says bap is just dead. i'm probably just tweaking but i'm confused by the logic here. why are some character's rank determined by their perfect comp, and other character's rank are determined by their worst comp, i'm not tryna hate or anything btw
I think its because of how flexible the characters are. Like Ball in a perfect comp is amazing but even if he didn't have a good team that works well he can still approach the fight in so many creative ways to cover that weakness. For Bap he's saying that if you don't have a good comp then there's not much you can do, his abilities when playing perfectly are still predictable and can be outplayed (is what I think he means, other than that the tierlist loses meaning the more characters are added and it shifts constantly).
JQ in the same tier as Hog feels a bit harsh honestly, the knife is harder to hit with the slower travel time, arc and abilities that deny it and it gives you the choice of when to pull the enemy (unlike hook), shout you can get a lot of value out of in a coordinated environment and the Ult requires you to track a lot of abilities. Roadhog just hits hook and 1 shots thing, then heals himself and traps someone in a corner with his ult
With roadhog you don’t choose when to pull but you have more control of how you pull. Watch good hog players hit crazy hooks, you can not only control where you pull someone but also the path they take when they are hooked. I would also argue that hog healing has more skill ceiling for management than junker queen shout. Junker queen’s smaller hitbox also becomes less relevant if everyone has perfect aim. Your points seem to be talking about how hard the abilities are to master which isn’t what the tierlist is. The tierlist is ranking what value the characters are if played perfectly, there’s a difference.
I sometimes wonder about what it would be like to watch a game of super-bots (like Overwatch Stockfish) playing against each other. What comp would they pick, and what would the gameplay look like?
@@ender0998the list is also trying to capture value. Brig has been a near must pick the after like season 2. Saying her value ceiling is the back end of B tier while saying Winston is S tier because of what he enables is a take it with a grain of salt moment.
@@cadeemmusgrove7791 i think it's more of how much does skill level scale with value level, and where does that value level eventually start to plateau. but idk
I think the most interesting part of this list is that it shows the potential that dive comps/characters have. It kinda goes in line with the whole meme of why the Korean league only plays dive despite the western "metas." Obviously, not all the higher rates characters are pure dive or dive at all, but in general dive comps seem to have the most skill expression available: and it makes sense. If the 3 biggest aspects of skill expression is mechanics, positioning, and timing, it's natural to assume dive has the most potential. Slow/Poke can give up a bit of their timing play, brawl can give a bit of their positioning play, but near-perfect dive has to be perfect everywhere at all times but because of this has the most potential to "win every game" like you mentioned with a perfect ball comp.
You brought it up. I used to love old sombra. I know why it had to change, but playing with people was so much fun. Old trans had so many fun games you could play with it. Also a lot of knowledge expression in being able to place your trans as close to a fight as possible without it getting found. The games you play when there is a mirror sombra. A lot of fun nuance that is in the character but it was overly evasive and I understand the change.
Pharah should be high A or S tier. If you could reliably hit heroes like Echo in the air and consistently avoid hitscan's sightlines, she's pretty much unstoppable.
remember this is assumed you're also playing vs. exceptional heroes (like hitscans). It's not a question of which hero has the best "noob stomp" potential
@@CoachSpilo Of course, but at the same time - if everyone plays perfectly then no one is exceptionally good. There always will be some bias in the conversation based on personal experiences. I am no exception
Did NOT expect to see my own comment 30 seconds in, didn't even recognize the Reddit post at first! Great video! I'm not sure if you had the chance to read the further discussion there, but I still think that Echo belongs in low S, mainly because in my perspective, she is like Wrecking Ball - even at the highest professional level, I believe that there is still significant room for pushing their value ceiling even further up, it's just that the effort needed in reaching that level and beyond is not worthwhile compared to perfecting Genji or Winston respectively, for example. I may be overestimating Duplicate - fair enough - but you can't deny that the ult can be built up rather quickly and that it's strategic value has yet to be explored to its fullest, considering it's most often just used as an escape tool or for a second Tracer.
As a longtime Hanzo main. Hanzo if really fun because he can pretty much do it all. Like you CAN pickup the slack for your team if you are going off which you cant do with every character in my opinion. I also play Torb a lot and so many people I feel like underestimate how strong his right click is when you are up close. Like just using the turret as a distraction gets enough value on its own sometimes, because like they HAVE to deal with it or else they keep getting shot lol.
It's a tierlist of what you think would be strongest if the players were all the best a mortal human could possibly be. Interesting. I wonder if certain synergies would develop that don't exist normally.
Good list overall, I'd probably put lucio back in A, Hanzo is definitely back in A, I would drop cassidy, Ana and Ashe as though they have insane 1v1 potential, their lack of mobility and reliance on cool-down to defend themselves just make them quite vulnerable to coordinated attacks. Like if 3 people jump on your tracer or your ball and you make all the perfect moves you can survive. If 3 people dive your Ana, even if you hit both sleep and nade it's still GG. And their mobility also limit the sightlines they can to an extent. I think Sojourn is still in B, though she can't rule a lobby the way she used to, I think timing railgun perfectly with very good mechanics can still give you one of the lowest ttk in the game, plus you have a better mobility cool-down than anyone in C for how consistent your value is. I would bring Juno up for the same reason plus speed ring management will be more and more valuable in my opinion.
On the junk question, have you seen gurk in owcs recently? He's been doin pretty ok. Edit: best rein vs best ram looks like cliff charges over and over again!!!!! I love cliff charging!!!
most lower tier heroes in this tier list just so happen to have a lower skill ceiling as well. you cant really blame new players for seeking out more accessible heroes at first glance
genji is always towards the top of these lists... but I've spent 1500 hours doing my best to improve on him and I just can't seem to get value. I spent maybe a tenth of the effort on Ram and climbed wayyyy higher.
I think this tier list has quite a few flaws. But not because I think Spilo ranked them unfairly or anything like that, but because of inconsistencies he was ranking them on; compared them under different circumstances. Just as one example what I mean: - he bumped Doomfist from B > A, because of the value you have with a perfect Doomfist in a perfect team. - but Batiste did not make it in to A tier, because he can only do so much vs a dive team IF the comp is not good. But in general I think a pretty cool concept to rank them like that.
What was ignored when you were talking about Reaper is that you have to get within range. Even if you're a god mechinaclly and you use all of your abilities perfectly, there is no way for you to consistently and effectively close the gap. If everyone is playing perfectly, Reaper would be the worst solely because he has no way to do damage from range and barely any way to protect himself from ranged damage.
Hey Spilo, I just came back to the game after long time not playing, decided to pick up tanks, was playing supports back in 2019, what heroes do you recommend playing and try to master? Currently, my best tank is zarya, around d2
Idk man, I feel like echo can outplay all her weaknesses if you know what you're doing, yea her projectiles are slow but she's silent as a mouse with ball like movement to get in and out, and she has no fall off while hitscan all do so if they really aren't letting you flank them or take space with your flight than poke them out and look for opportunities when they're down, or with widow you can actually 1 shot her from across the map I think still, idk I stopped playing around s9 and I guess they changed break points alot but still echo has the most options next to tracer imo, only thing that's ever screwed me up is when my team doesn't play with me and my stubbornness to adapt my pick to fit their team comp which is what keeps most otps in master to gm 😂
Flip this, and you've got a tier list of heroes most in need of a rework. Also, I know you're focusing on skill expression, but I think Juno's raw numbers should have put her in B. Aspen is just utterly destroying the ladder with her. If you swapped all the games Aspen played Juno for Zen or Illari, there is no way she would have won as many games.
I think doom otps are fcking crazy man, it feels like they are playing a different game. has to high A or S, also I feel like queen does have weakness but if we are thinking about ur team helping you with that weakness, the carry potential of a close to perfect jq player is just too huge to not put her A.
why do you say "lack of mechanics" for juno? isn't she quite mechanics-heavy given her verticality and high output rate (i.e. having to keep high uptime by consistently target switching fast)?
is juno not one of the best heros atm, i get that the skill ceiling is low in comparison to other supports but just the value you get from all of her abilities is insace, not to mention her high healing output
Juno's definitely pretty strong in this meta, but I wanted to place her conservatively considering she's so brand new. There's a good chance over the next few months she'll deserve higher.
i think the idea is she has a good baseline value but there is only so much you can do when your ult is a straight line and you put mario kart booster at perfect timing. Helps the team a lot but not to the level of ana's sleep or nade... those can literaly turn a fight on cooldown while a good ring will setup a good engage disengage that's it, ult same, the lock-on thingy is very less skilled and basic combo value is already near the skill cap with this
No way u said junk rat doesn’t have a lot of mobility… cmon… it’s like when I said juno didn’t have good survival tools when she had dbl movement abilities
I mean,he has to sacrifice his concussion mine,so basically his one-shot,in order to get m mobility. You can do a triple mine,but that requires you to setup and wait for your mine cooldown to finish. Plus, even if he didn't have to sacrifice his mine cooldowns, he still doesn't have full air control and can get sniped by anyone paying attention. That's my opinion anyway.
Moira should at least be above torb, all you need fully know is choke points and good turret placements, on Moira you have to manage heals and damage properly to get the best usage out of your kit and know how to time your fades properly for stuff like junk tire, rein pin, dva bomb, ect and that fade its used effectively for making sure your positioning is good for managing your damage and heals when your team move in quickly or when you need to make a quick tactical retreat. Just makes it really weird that torb isnt at the bottom and moria is just because people are only considering that she can lock on to enemies while damaging them even though shes most effective while healing multiple people and helping your team pick off any enemies that are at low hp. Any games with her that end with me have a lot of kills is just from a bit of damage from normal attack or damage orb, not really solo kills or final blows. Also why is bastion below torb? Bastion can be way more useful and challenging to use then torb with managing turret form for high damage or for breaking a shield to help the rest of the team and being able to use nade for going in, going out, or for damage when needed, though I do feel like torb alt would probably be better then bastion because of the space you can make with good lava placement (my personal opinion for both, not against how torb is used effectivly compared to other characters, it just seems really weird that he isnt all the way at the bottom imo)
What's so hard about dva? You can focus most anyone on the backline and you're impossible to kill without huge effort. Bomb is unavoidable in some areas
I’m a little confused by the concept, by “played perfectly” do we mean flawless mechanical aim and game sense? Or the upper limit of what a person playing could actually do on a character? Cos if a widow “plays perfectly” then I don’t know how she isn’t S
Upper limit of what is conceivably possible, like a great player have a great day (vs. other great players on heroes also having great days). Widow is much more map dependent than many of the heroes on this list.
Was this made before the hanzo one shot reversion? Because if the opposing squishies are 250 or less than he can take out the whole team in a couple seconds
Can we all agree sombra is just cancer for the game nothing better than getting hacked out of my ult with an ability love trading an ult for an ability cool down
I disagree with the placements of some things. For instance mei, while there is strategy in placing walls. There is equal or even greater expression in outplaying walls. Saying mei has a lot of strategic skills expression when you often are entirely reliant on choices made by the enemy team or alternatively the right team comp, seems hyperbolic. I would say Wall's potential value rivals hog hook, where if it lands, there's a huge amount of value, but the enemy team has expressible skill in avoiding it. Now, I also disagree on the placements of Hanzo, junkrat, and maybe even genji. Many high level Junk and Hanzo players don't play very traditionally due to their heroes struggling in a vacuum. Due to the lethality and, in Hanzo's case, stealth of the characters, they have the ability to force value using their movement kits to set up unique slime positions. Playing like this can have huge strategic value similar to hook or wall, with the capacity to provide significantly more burst value. A junk in a tuck spot can instantly elim an entire backline unless the team devotes a lot of resources to flush him out. Hanzo can take an angle almost silently and take unique positions due to wall climb. While both junk and Hanzo are limited depending on map rng, junk and genji both have unique movement that not all characters can properly follow. Pushing the plays that you can make with such movement to it's absolute limit, junkrat has some issues regarding survivability, but genji gets his cooldown back on elims, giving him access to instant retreat as well. Making the only conceivable counter to a "perfect" genji CC, where deflect truly gives him that push to S-tier value. His ability to take nearly any angle, his potential to repeatedly chain cooldown loops; and his ability to garner value in any comp, on any map, against any team. I really don't see how he shouldn't be S-tier.
Ill just add to and end the discussion here with a video of this pro player playing tracer, ive kinda gave up on ever playing that hero again after seeing this. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z0EOeQlW6pc.html&ab_channel=%EC%9C%84%EC%9E%90%EB%93%9C%ED%98%95WizardHyeong
I think his "power ceiling" is too low for that. Even at perfection a doom wont have as much actual value as a peak winston imo, even tho the skill ceiling is insane hes just not strong enough
@ArdaSReal I think the reason his power is low is because he relies on empowered punch. There are some pretty creative tactics to bait people into dumping dmg into block, but you can't get it consistently.
@@ArdaSReal it’s true he has the most techs out of any character even more than doomfist and petal tree and pull have an almost unlimited amount of uses and therefore potential and assuming he’s weaving his damage and heals he can have atleast the most heals and realistically pretty good damage, it shouldn’t be more than a nap or zen but I’ve done it many times before. So all together he’s a stat powerhouse with the utility to stop every ultimate in the game and most cooldowns and survive when targeted. On paper he’s busted, in game he’s still busted but nobody has explored every aspect of his kit at the same time. Which is why you see so many heal bot ing lifeweavers and top500s stopping ultimates but still low damage and most still have bad movement with their dash. I’m not saying it’s easy it’s not, probably the hardest because to get the most value you have to track every ultimate which is pretty difficult and multitasking way more than most characters but with practice and caffeine I know it’s possible and soon enough I’ll prove it when I hit #1
Disagree with Mei’s placement. Watch someone like Numbers play her. Most people don’t have the imagination or skill to pull off his plays. She can do way more or equal to a Genji (99% dmg 1% utility) and even Lucio.
Sombra is S tier though imo. Hack is seriously too strong if played well enough. There are so many ults that can be canceled with insane game sense, juno ult, junk ult, hanzo ult. The feeling you get when you prehack someone whos about to ult is insane. She has the ability to shut down other characters skill expressions enabling her team to collapse on them with the second thats given. With the virus skillshot and a hack sombra 1v1s all squishies aside from maybe brig torb and sym extremely effectively.
i hate that they overtune high skill ceiling heroes so average joe can play them too. they overtune free value heroes like reinhardt too. i can literally sit holding my shield and win games by making the game boring for everyone. i started playing rein this season and have mega winrate. just ridiculous. the game has no trade offs or proper balance. it just doesnt make sense. so many cheeze and dumb down value. just how much stress you put in to match just by picking widow and sitting 50m away. ridiculous. or sombra... whenever i try to play this game im just like ''thats stupid man this game not worth my time''. despite all this, i think the biggest offender in this game not the balance but the rank system and matchmaker. it wasnt unstable like this before but it's a total mess since s9. wish they can have better devs that has better grasp and do more intricate and thoughtful job. they seem overly focused on business side of things and making ''fun'' heroes. heroes are their biggest asset.
Fwiw, got about half way into the video and had to give up because I couldn't keep hearing the cough drop or whatever clacking around your teeth. (I have a sensitivity to those sort of sounds) Like you can do whatever, but to me that's a super irritating thing to listen to so I'm dipping. I suspect I'm not the only one annoyed by it. Shame because I usually love your content
