The Best Heroes for New Overwatch Players

These are the best Overwatch heroes for new players!

Best DPS Heroes for New Overwatch Players

DPS is simultaneously the most fun and the most daunting role in Overwatch. As a DPS player, you have the power at your fingertips to dictate team fights and pull off the flashiest of plays. With great power, however, comes great… blame.

Many players tend to put pressure on DPS to perform, which can make playing DPS stressful. Luckily some easy-to-use, high-performing heroes deal enormous damage and are still beginner-friendly!

Soldier: 76

Soldier 76, or Dad 76 as some like to call him, is the most standard shooter character in Overwatch. He carries a powerful assault rifle, a personal healing station, and is one of the only characters who can sprint on demand! If you have experience playing Call of Duty, Battlefield, or other shooting titles, you will probably feel right at home with Soldier 76’s kit.

His pulse rifle functions very much like a standard assault rifle. The most recent rendition of Soldier 76’s pulse rifle features a vertical recoil pattern that can be controlled by dragging down your mouse or control stick if you are on console. Anyone with experience in CS:GO or VALORANT will likely already be familiar with the idea of spray control.

On top of being relatively easy to play, Soldier 76 is also genuinely good. His gun can deal some of the most consistent hitscan damage of any hero in the game. His ultimate ability literally gives you aim hacks for a second. Soldier 76’s mobility is also a huge advantage for a DPS in this game.

Torbjorn

While some might consider Torbjorn a meme character, Torbjorn is actually pretty great and can be an effective character if used properly. Torbjorn is an engineer who can throw out a turret that will autotarget enemies. He also has a Rivet Gun that can fire a single, arcing projectile for long-range targets and a devastating shotgun blast for short-range targets.

Torbjorn is pretty easy to learn because his turret can do a significant amount of work. He also has access to both short-range and long-range damage sources with his primary weapon. Torbjorn is also pretty tanky due to his Overload ability, which is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card that gives him an immediate boost of armor and an increased fire rate for a short duration.

If you are interested in playing more projectile-based heroes like Mei, Junkrat, or Symmetra, Torbjorn is a good first step. He will help you learn how to lead targets with shots, how to think about the map critically for turret locations, all while remaining genuinely helpful to your team. While Torb might not be your main, he is a pretty solid character for new Overwatch players to try.

Best Tank Heroes for New Overwatch Players

Tanking in Overwatch is a thankless task. These days, it can feel like the optimistic teamwork that once pervaded the Overwatch community has given way to a more sullen, resentful form of selfish gameplay. This isn’t true across the board. But the lack of team cohesion can contribute to a sense of hopelessness for tanks.

Luckily, some tanks in the game are genuinely fun to play for beginners. Even if you are solo queuing without teammates. There are two excellent options to start on — Orisa and D.Va.

Orisa

Orisa is a main tank. This means her primary job is to escort the team, absorb damage, and create space for the DPS to deal damage. Of the main tanks in Overwatch, Orisa is the easiest to learn.

Orisa can be effective at range due to her Fusion Driver gun, while her protective barrier provides a stationary barrier that protects your team from incoming damage. And when things get too hot, Orisa can use her recently buffed Fortify ability to reduce the damage she takes and become immune to crowd-control abilities.

Executing an effective play cycle with Orisa is pretty simple. You want to lay down your protective barrier on the front line. Once it breaks, you can cycle in your Fortify ability or back up behind natural cover until your barrier recovers.

You also have access to Orisa’s Halt! ability that sends out an orb that can pull nearby enemies toward it. This crowd control ability can be used to slow down an aggressive opponent, pull enemies into a friendly ultimate ability, or even pull enemies into environmental hazards on some maps.

If you like the idea of playing an Omnic centaur with a long-range weapon and easy-to-use protective abilities, you are going to love Orisa. On top of being easy and fun to play, you can make a huge difference by playing Orisa well. Just be forewarned, like all main tanks, Orisa is heavily reliant on her healers, so keep them alive, and you are golden.

D.Va

Tracer may be the face of Overwatch, but D.Va is everyone’s favorite. This Korean esports athlete turned M.E.K.A. pilot is one of the most fun and bright personalities featured in Overwatch. She is also a damn good off-tank hero and arguably the easiest off-tank hero to play due to her high damage, high mobility, and forgiving damage abilities.

D.Va uses her mech to pressure enemy backlines and deal massive damage to the enemy tanks. Her primary weapons are the Fusion Cannons, which fire a continuous shotgun blast and never have to reload. This constant shotgun fire can be combined with her Micro Missiles and Boosters to quickly dive on enemy players.

D.Va is also pretty great at defending her team due to her arguably overpowered Defense Matrix. This ability casts a field in front of D.Va that absorbs enemy projectiles and can even stop some hero’s ultimate abilities. When you save this ability for the right situation, D.Va can make some game-winning plays with it.

Another unique aspect of D.Va’s kit is that she doesn’t die when her mech loses all its health. Instead, she is ejected and can re-earn her way back into the mech. However, it is usually better to die quickly and respawn at that point. She is also de-meched while using her Self-Destruct ultimate ability, after which she can call in a brand new mech and keep fighting!

D.Va is a great tank to pick if you are a beginner because she is mechanically simple to play. At least in the lower-level lobbies that you will be learning in, D.Va is pretty forgiving so long as you don’t overextend. Her abilities generally don’t require super precise aim. This means you can be lower-skilled and still do pretty well if you work with your team.

Best Support heroes for new Overwatch players

Support may sound like a boring task since you aren’t doing the valuable work of damaging enemies as much. However, Support can be an enjoyable role to play, and despite what you might hear, playing Support well is not just about healing.

Moira

Moira is a deeply influential healer. She can make a huge difference on the battlefield while being pretty easy to play. Her healing comes in the form of a short-range, area-of-effect spray that provides direct healing and a brief after heal as well. Moira has a limited pool of healing that can be charged with her Biotic Grasp. This ability locks onto enemies and deals damage to charge your health pool.

Moira also carries a Biotic Orb that can be fired to either heal friendlies or damage enemies. You should almost always use it to heal friendlies because you are a main support hero and because it will charge your ultimate much faster. There is one key exception to this rule: When you use your ultimate ability, you should use a damage orb first because it can make a big difference in how lethal your Coalescence ends up being.

Moira’s Fade ability is probably the best escape in the game. When she uses Fade, she becomes invulnerable for .8 seconds and receives a movement buff of 250%. You can use this ability to get out of trouble, dodge ultimates, or punk a Roadhog trying to hook you.

Moira is probably the easiest character to play in the game. All you need to do is use your healing spray and orb liberally when friendlies are low and deal damage against enemies with your Biotic Grasp from safety behind your tanks. Moira’s ultimate also charges really quickly, so use it often!

Mercy

Mercy is a powerful healer who is very mobile and doesn’t require high-level aiming skill to make an impact. Using a beam that locks onto friendly targets, Mercy can heal 55 health per second or boost a teammate’s damage by 30%. Since the targeted ability is pretty forgiving, a Mercy player’s primary task is to stay safe while delivering massive healing.

Mercy also has the unique ability to resurrect a fallen teammate. It can be tempting to go for high-risk resurrections. But you should really only resurrect a player if there is little to no danger of you dying.

The hardest part about learning to play Mercy is mastering the art of flying to safety using your teammates. Mercy can use her Guardian Angel ability to fly toward a targeted ally, and then players can hold shift to float downward. You can also hit space while flying toward an enemy to quickly boost upward or forward, depending on the angle of your flight.

For a character who rarely deals damage, Mercy is surprisingly fun to play. She is also disproportionately helpful to her team for a healer that is easy to play.

Brigitte

The Overwatch gods might strike us down for suggesting that more people play Brigitte. But she is a legitimately great hero who is surprisingly easy to find success with, even for beginners. Brigitte is an off-healer who carries a 250-health person barrier. She can heal her teammates from a distance using her armor packs or up close with her area-of-effect Inspire ability, which is activated when Brig deals damage.

In addition to having multiple sources of healing and a protective barrier, Brig also packs a serious punch. Her Rocket Flail is the perfect weapon for harassing Reinhardts and other barrier tanks, and all the while, your damage is healing your team. On top of her damage, she has two CC abilities. You can use her barrier to Shield Bash enemies and her Whip Shot to boop them away from you.

Brigitte is just an all-around incredible support hero. All you need to do is stick by your tanks, stun and boop enemies that get near your squishier teammates, and deal damage. If you can stay alive while doing all of this, you will be a huge help to your team. The enemy team will hate you for playing such a broken hero. But who cares what they think, just have fun!

Good Luck, Have Fun!

This guide highlighted seven of the best heroes for newer players to learn, each with their own advantages and depth. But ultimately, the best way to learn which heroes work with your style is to practice, try new things, and be patient with yourself. Whether you’re discovering exciting ultimate combinations or focusing on your mechanical skill, each hero can bring another layer of understanding of Overwatch. Practicing with many heroes also can help you learn counters, tactics and refresh your enjoyment of the game. We hope to see you on the ladder. Good luck and have fun!