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50 Terms Every Overwatch Player Should Learn
If you’re just getting into Overwatch, you'll notice there are a lot of terms used by players to quickly communicate and strategize. Here are some you should know.
Getting into Overwatch for the first time can be daunting. There are tons of heroes to pick up and learn, many maps to learn and game modes to play on. Knowing who to pick, what to do, and how to contribute to your team are essential to winning, but getting there is a little tough when you don’t speak the language.
Should you pick Hitscan or Projectile to counter the enemy team? Is Symmetra the right hero for this map? Is Reinhardt better than Winston in this team comp? What do any of those things even mean?
Overwatch is a team game where everyone needs to do their part to win and the biggest keys to earning that W are communication and game knowledge. This guide will explore the many facets of Overwatch’s gameplay and, hopefully, give you the knowledge you need to succeed. Now with the release of Overwatch 2 incoming, it is even more important to be in the know and differentiate between what is now old and
Sigma Vs Overwatch Team
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01
Positions
Overwatch has categorized its heroes into 3 main types: Damage, Tank, and Support. These categories can be divided further to allow teams and players to find the right synergy of heroes, abilities, and ultimates in any match.
Damage/DPS
“DPS” normally stands for ‘Damage Per Second. This term is typically used in other genres of games like MMOs, RPGs, and MOBAs but, in Overwatch, it mostly defines heroes that are specialized in dealing damage and scoring eliminations. Examples of these types of heroes are: Soldier 76, Reaper, Genji, Widowmaker, Tracer, and Cassidy, to name a few. Most damage heroes excel at offense, but there are a handful that are known for playing great defense like Torbjörn and Mei, who also specialize in area denial and map control.
Flex
The “Flex” role is usually given to players, not heroes, who don’t have a specific role but can play wherever is needed to plug up holes in composition. Not everyone can become proficient with every hero in the game, but knowing who has strengths and weaknesses in certain team comps lets players create lineups on the spot to adapt to the enemy team.
Main Tank
Just like DPS, “Tank” is a very traditional role found in many games. Tank characters specialize in creating space for their team, shielding them from damage, and crowd control. In Overwatch, Tanks are further divided into 2 roles: Main Tanks and Off Tanks. Main Tanks are heroes whose primary job is to put down barriers, protect their teammates from damage, and create space between the enemy. Main Tank heroes are like anchor characters that have shields that work as covers as their main ability. These heroes include Reinhardt, Winston, Orisa, and Sigma. Main Tanks are the classic tanks. They have the most health points and should always be in front of the team.
Support
Support heroes are often defined as the “healers” of the team. Their main role is to focus on restoring the health of their squad while providing extra support in a couple of unique ways. Think buffs to teammates or debuffs to the opposition. An example of how a support hero can buff their team is Lucio, who increases the movement speed of friendlies. For debuff examples, we’ve got Zenyatta’s Discord Orb, which amplifies the amount of damage the enemy takes.
Then we’ve got heroes like Ana, who can both debuff enemies and buff teammates at the same time. Her Biotic Grenade grants teammates an increased amount of healing,, and renders the enemy unable to be healed for a short period of time. Support heroes include Mercy, Lucio, Zenyatta, Moira, and more.
02
Team Compositions
Throughout its history, Overwatch has seen many different team comps be formed and then promptly countered. Within a single game, it’s possible to change your heroes multiple times to counter the enemy as they are, and as they will be after they reform in response. Sometimes the map, or game mode, can influence these changes as well.
Efficiently using your heroes’ abilities and ultimates makes for clutch moments and paves the way for team wipes. Knowing what team comp works best for your squad, and knowing which players are comfortable with what characters, is important to consistently achieving victory. Some of these compositions can still be made but, when Overwatch 2 is fully implemented, we’ll see new ones flourish and take over.
2/2/2
Basically Overwatch’s original team composition, and one which won’t be possible once Overwatch 2 releases. It consists of 2 Tanks, usually, one main and one off tank, 2 DPS, and 2 Supports. This team comp is Overwatch in its most traditional form and the basis of online competitive ranked play as well.
Anti-dive/Counter dive
Instead of having Winston and D.Va, the “Anti-Dive” composition was formed usingg heroes that can stop the mobility and momentum of Dive comps. This included heroes such as Mccree, Roadhog, Orisa, and Junkrat.
Deathball
“Deathball” is a team composition which makes use of Lucio’s speed boost and Reinhardt’s tanking abilities, moving the team with a unified march to the objective. With heroes like Zarya and Moira providing additional support, thiscomp combined speed, absurd healing, and lots of tank power. Deathball lasted through many balance changes and included other heroes such as Ana and Roadhog, among others. It wasn’t until the introduction of the fast moving Dive comp, that Deathball finally met its end.
Dive
The aforementioned Dive team composition was all about mobility and precision. Utilizing Winston and D.Va as the tanks of the team alongside DPS characters like Genji and Tracer, and supports like Lucio and/or Zenyatta, these teams would practically pounce all at once onto certain targets of the enemy team. Quite literally diving right into the action and taking them out swiftly, earning comp’s moniker. This team composition was incredibly strong and was used for quite some time through Overwatch’s competitive history, so much so that it even necessitated a team composition born purely to counter it.
Meta
“Meta” is a term used to describe the most optimal team composition available during the game’s current state. Overwatch has gone through multiple metas throughout its history, thanks to an ever changing game state brought on by balance patches, and some are even defined by just the overwhelming strength of one hero alone. Below will be some team compositions that were meta at one point, but are still viable if executed well.
Triple Tank
Triple tank came and went in Overwatch’s history with many different forms, but the most notorious combo was the GOATS composition, named after the team that conceived it. Consisting of 3 tanks and 3 supports, this team composition was so overwhelming, it would steamroll through teams, making it practically mandatory for competitive teams. However, triple tank did exist even before GOATS came into play; years before, Triple tank used to consist of 3 tanks, 1 dps, and 2 supports. Overwatch has since made many changes in terms of balance and rules to move away from this style of gameplay.
AoE
“AoE” stands for “Area of Effect”. Instead of aiming and targeting a single specific enemy, players will target an area to affect more than one enemy and even the environment. Mei’s ultimate is an example of this, slowly freezing anyone unlucky to be within range into an icicle.
Backline
The backline is the tail end of the team. Support heroes are usually found here and this is the sweet spot for any flanking enemy DPS characters looking to cause problems. Dive compositions love to leap into the backline, isolating and eliminating the support heroes or other specific targets first. When a support hero says they need help in the backline, it is paramount that any available teammate turn around and help them immediately. Being taken out by a dive is NOT a slow process.
CC
“CC” means “Crowd Control” and is mainly used to describe abilities and ultimates that stun, limit, or immobilize a hero fully. These abilities include Mccree’s Flashbang, Mei’s primary fire, Junkrat’s trap, and more. Orisa and Zarya each have an ability that can make themselves immune to CC, and Zarya can also extend it to one other hero.
Dry Push
A “Dry Push” is when a team launches an attack, intending to force the defensive team to use their ultimates, without the attacking squad having to spend any of their own. That way, the next attack will be at the offensive team’s fullest advantage, since the defensive team will be in a resource drought.
Feeding
“Feeding” (or to “feed”) is when a player engages the enemy team by themselves and allows the enemy to damage them as much as possible without the “feeder” achieving anything worthwhile. It’s called feeding because it allows the enemy team to gain free ultimate charge without running the risk of a full on team fight. For instance, a Roadhog running to the enemy and constantly healing himself as they damage him is actually detrimental to their team. Despite him fighting and doing damage, all he’s accomplishing is boosting the opposition’s ultimate charge practically for free.
Fill
When a player “fills” in for a team, they are essentially picking whatever role is unaccounted for, after the majority of the team has selected their heroes. This could be because they joined the game late, aree the flex players of the team, or are in one of many situations that require a shake up in the squad.
Flanking
“Flanking” is a tactic used in Overwatch (and many other team games) to sneak behind enemy lines and attack them from the side or directly in their backline. By using the element of surprise, or having parts of your team distract them at the front, this tactic ise used to quickly eliminate opponents before they even know you’re there.
Focus/Focusing
“Focusing” is the act of a team or a team’s shot caller picking a target/player and everyone else following through on attacking that target. Focusing a target is to ensure that a certain hero’s abilities aren’t used or a specific player’s skills aren’t encountered. Dive compositions are especially good at this since all of the characters in said team are optimized for mobility and efficiency.
Frontline
The frontline is best described as the vanguard position of the team, or the heroes that stand out front facing the enemy directly. This position is usually reserved for Main Tanks since they can use their shields here to protect their teammates from enemy fire.
Full-Hold
Full-hold is when a defensive team manages to defend their initial point entirely, not allowing the attacking team to capture the first point of the game.
Hitscan
Overwatch has many different weapons but, not including melee focused heroes, there are 2 main types of primary fire. Hitscan fire hits the opponent instantly, there is no need to shoot ahead or account for bullet drop. Where you shoot is where you hit, however large the cone of fire will be. Hitscan fire sometimes comes with its own challenges like bloom and damage falloff. With bloom: the longer you hold down the trigger, the more inaccurate the weapon becomes. For damage falloff: the further the bullet travels, the less damage does. Affected heroes include Cassidy, Soldier 76, and Wrecking Ball, to name a few.
Over-Extending
A team can “over-extend” after they’ve won an offensive or defensive fight and continuously push aggressively towards the enemy’s spawn. These kinds of aggressive play styles tend to snowball into overwhelming gameplay or allow for the other team to take positional advantage on the over-extending team by killing right at their spawn.
Peek/Poke
A player that is “peeking” is going back and forth behind cover and only revealing themselves when they are about to deal damage. If a character is peeking, then they are usually far away from both teams and are dealing what is called “poke” damage. Essentially, it is long range damage that is hard to punish since they’re hard to reach. Heroes like Widowmaker, Cassidy, Soldier 76, and Ashe excel at dealing poke damage by peeking around corners.
Peel
To “peel” away is to disengage, to help a teammate disengage from being swarmed by enemy dives and damage, or to apply hero abilities to help a certain player. This is usually for tanks that are in difficult positions or supports that are getting focused. For example: If the opposing team dives your supports, your tanks can help peel them away by providing shields or repositioning to a different location.
Pocketing
“Pocketing” is when a healer sticks closely to another player and constantly heals or buffs them and them only. Making that player or hero significantly stronger and harder to beat.
Projectile
Projectile primary fire is when your weapon shoots projectiles that have travel time, the opposite of hitscan. The easiest way to understand this is through heroes like Hanzo and Pharah. Hanzo shoots arrows which are not instant, needing to be aimed ahead to account for drawback and distance. The same applies to Pharah. When playing her, players must shoot to where they expect the opponent to go or land, if they want to score a hit. Ana is a unique character in that, her primary fire while unscoped is projectile but switches to hitscan when scoped.
Resetting
When a team “resets”, they are leaving a losing fight so that they can regroup and not incur more losses or disadvantages. This helps avoid trickling, feeding, and staggering which helps ensure the opposing team doesn’t gain any more advantages for the next encounter.
Spawn-Camping
“Spawn-camping” is fighting the enemy team right at their spawn doors, either picking off lone players separately from their team or pushing back the whole team to their spawn.
Squishy
“Squishy” refers to characters with small health pools that can be killed relatively fast. A good margin would be from 150 to 225, any hero above that margin is not considered a squishy.
Staggering
The act of “staggering” the enemy team is to purposefully desync or delay their respawn timers after a fight has been won. This is achieved by leaving a few surviving members alive longer after the fight and then eliminating them after some time to ensure that it takes longer for them to regroup and attack the objective.
Stalling
“Stalling” is when players are staying on the objective for the sole purpose of running out the clock, keeping the match in overtime, giving time for the team to return to the fight, etc. Heroes such as Mei, Lucio, and Winston’s Ultimate are great at stalling.
Trickling
“Trickling” is when a team engages the enemy or objective one by one or at least very sparingly. This type of gameplay often results in being at disadvantage since no fights will be on equal terms, resulting in losses and wasting the clock. Don’t do this.
Wipe
A team “wipe” is when all 6 players of the team are completely wiped out after a fight. There is no staggering, no trickling,and no feeding in these situations since all members of the team have yet to respawn.
Zoning
This strategy is used to influence your opponent’s position, moving them in certain directions or keeping them from pushing onto an objective. For example, if the enemy is pushing too far ahead and your team needs them to slow down, ultimates from D.Va, Cassidy, Soldier 76, and Winston can let your team zone out the enemy and scatter or push them away.
Back-Capping
“Back-capping” is when a player sneaks behind the enemy team and tries to stealthily complete their objective without them noticing, this trick can be amplified if the enemy team is over-extending or fully engaged in fighting the remaining players of the team.
C9
“C9” is a popular meme term that stands for Cloud 9. A C9 happens when a team is winning a fight towards the objective but aggressively over-extends or forgets about the objective and doesn’t secure the objective resulting in a loss. Tough to end up as a meme, but we take those sometimes.
Chokepoints
Chokepoints are parts of the map that cause bottlenecks. These areas are advantageous for defending teams since they constrict the attacking team into one concentrated point, making it easier to keep them from reaching the objective.
The Paris map is a great example since, right out the gate, there is only one point of entry onto the first objective and the defending team is given the high ground, very easily turning it into a simple chokepoint to defend and a tough one to attack.
King of the Hill
“King of the Hill” or “KoTH” is used as an alternative name for Control maps. Maps such as Nepal, Ilios, and Oasis have king of the hill-like objectives which is how they got the name.
Point/Payload
The words “point” and “payload” are used to describe the objective quickly, depending on the map. “Point” is used for objectives that need to be captured like 2 CP and KotH. While “payload” is used to describe the moving objective for escort maps. Hybrid maps have both points and payloads.
Tick
Ticks are the small chevrons or v-shaped markers that show how much progress your team has made in capturing an objective. In 2CP or Hybrid maps, there are checkpoints for these ticks at 3 different intervals before full capture. For payload maps, they simply track how much distance you’ve pushed the payload.
Baby D.Va
“Baby D.Va” refers to when D.Va’s mech is destroyed and D.Va herself pops out from it. She is the smallest character in the game at that point.
Boop
“Boop” is short for abilities that can push people away such as Lucio’s Soundwave, Reinhardt’s charge, etc.
Bubble
“Bubble” is Zarya’s barrier, a pink bubble that protects her and one teammate from any CC and temporary damage. Any absorbed damage charges up Zarya’s weapon to deal more damage.
Discord
“Discord” Is Zenyatta’s orb which amplifies the amount of damage the enemy will take. This is used to help coordinate dive compositions, making them more effective at quickly killing their targets.
(D.Va) Eat
D.Va’s defense matrix allows her to essentially delete or “eat” the projectiles, bullets, abilities, and even ultimates of many heroes. From Hanzo’s arrows, to Reinhardt’s Firestrike, to even Zarya’s Graviton Surge or Mei’s Blizzard, she can eat them all.
High Noon
“High Noon” refers to Cassidy’s deadeye ultimate where he says, “It’s High Noon!” before unleashing it. It’s very hard to miss and, if not defended against by a shield or Lucio/Brigitte ultimate, he can wipe out whole teams in one go.
Nano
“Nano” is short for Ana’s Nanoboost which is used in many ultimate combos. Think the infamous beyblade or the classic Nanoblade.
Pharmercy
“Pharmercy” is a popular term, used to describe a Mercy pocketing a Pharah. Employing the pocket strategy here makes them an effective duo, capable of dealing incredible amounts of damage with verticality and range.
Res(urrection)
Mercy’s “Res” is a staple of the game and has gone through many changes over the course of the game’s metas. The ability to bring back a teammate in the heat of battle is important for the Mercy team to pull off, and equally important for the opposition to stop. Needing to put a lid on Res makes Mercy the target of a lot of team focuses and the first dive target.
TP/Tele(porter)
Short for Symmetra’s teleporter, this ability is widely used for both offensive and defensive strategies. The ability to quickly return to the point or instantly close gaps are both very potent when used with a well coordinated team.
