The first 2017 major tournament of Overwatch is a few weeks in, and we are seeing a trend with teams.
Teams are running behind three tanks with two healers to support.
The most common team composition is: Ana (support), Lucio (support), D.Va (tank), Reinhardt (tank), Roadhog (tank) and Zarya (tank) at 24.9 percent.
So why are teams selecting so many tanks?
Let's go through them and see why each is used so often.
The most selected hero overall is Reinhardt, selected 98.3 percent of the time. Offensive pressure and many dives are facilitated through Reinhardt and his 2,000 damage shield. His Earthquake ultimate also provides a momentary stun on opposing players caught in its wake, allowing his teammates to help him clean up the mess.
D.Va and Ultimates
Like Reinhardt, D.Va (81.1 percent pick rate) is blessed with the ability of not having to reload or worry about an ammo count, despite having automatic weapons. Her fusion cannons can continuously fire, and in the newest patch, they fire faster, though dealing less damage.
Ultimate abilities come off cooldown by taking and dealing damage, thus D.Va is able to generate her ultimate ability at one of the fastest rates in the game. Among heroes who have played at least an hour, players playing D.Va nearly gain an ultimate a minute (0.8), the fastest rate out of any qualified hero.
Her Self Destruct ultimate is one that, when timed properly, clears out a team and provides painless payload travel and easier checkpoint captures.
Naturally, D.Va has the most ultimates used at the Overwatch Winter Premiere with 1,296, the only hero with more than 1,000 used. Next closest is Reinhardt, at 879.
Zarya's surge
The most common three-tank teams are D.Va, Reinhardt and Zarya (74.6 percent pick rate). Though Roadhog has a better offensive rating, Zarya provides more support with her particle cannon. Having the ability to provide a shield around teammates and herself, she essentially provides extra health at the cost of an ability cooldown.
What really makes Zarya valuable to a team composition is her ultimate ability: the Gravitron Surge. Zarya fires a gravity bomb that brings all enemies into one spot, deals damage while they're trapped and allows her teammates to do compact damage easily.
Teams will combo her Graviton Surge with other high damage area of effect ultimates, such as Tracer's Pulse Bomb, Genji's Dragonblade and Roadhog's Whole Hog.
A DPS character in a tank
An indication of how dominate the tank meta currently is, Roadhog (56.7 percent pick rate) the fourth-most popular tank, is the sixth-most picked character among all heroes.
Roadhog can self-heal, restoring 60 percent of his health per use. In addition, his chain hook provides an easy way to pull a D.Va or Reinhardt away from shielding others or initiate an easy kill.
Most of all, Roadhog's Scrap Gun provides enough damage to classify him as a DPS character. Of the tanks, he has the most kills per minute, despite playing less than Zarya, D.Va and Reinhardt.
He also has the highest win rate among the tanks, winning 50.6 percent of the time he has played. No other tank is above 50 percent.
But without the right support, it does not work.
While having damage is key, having the right supports matter more, and there are two standout support characters every team is picking: Lucio and Ana, who both have 95 percent or higher pick rates.
Lucio is picked for the speed boost he is able to provide. The ability to get to checkpoints, choke points and dives more quickly can be the difference between a 4 vs. 2 advantage and a 2 vs. 4 disadvantage. Simply put, positioning and objective control will usually outweigh heroes with more focus on fighting. Even still, he has abilities on that front as well, being able to group heal with ease by switching the tempo of his music.
However, Ana is the real key. Her ability to "amp up her health" with her biotic grenade allows for her to shoot a teammate for +75 health, hit them with a biotic grenade for another +175 health and shoot again for a total of +325 in a matter of seconds.
Her ultimate is what makes her truly irreplaceable. The Nano Boost provides teammates with 50-plus percent damage and a 50 percent damage taken reduction, basically making the hero benefiting from it invincible. Boosts have been seen used on Reaper's Death Blossom, Genji's Dragonblade, Soldier 76's Tactical Visor and on Reinhardt to clear an area with his Rocket Hammer.
All stats provided by Winstonslab.com