Whenever popular heroes are nerfed it’s not long before lesser played heroes move in to fill the gaps left by the more popular heroes. Widowmaker and McCree have sat at the top of the meta for a long time now, dominating the playing field for their long range hitscan. McCree especially had consistently been the most picked hero, as not only did he provide incredibly accurate attacks from a very long range, but he was also unmatched in tank-killing strength due to how much damage Fan the Hammer did so quickly. Of course a hero’s time on top can only last so long, and Blizzard brought down the nerf hammer on both Widowmaker and McCree, heavily damaging McCree’s tank killing ability with Fan the Hammer’s damage nearly halved and making Widowmaker a lot more clunky to use with her new scope changes and lowered damage.
With these heroes much less viable, teams were searching for a new hero to fill the much needed gap of accurate, long-range hitscan. Soldier: 76 is that hero. For a long time Soldier: 76 has struggled to find a place with McCree filling such an incredible role to him. Soldier: 76 had a lot on McCree, with his mobility being higher thanks to sprint, his utility being higher thanks to Biotic Field, and his ultimate generally being a more reliable version of McCree’s. McCree had one big advantage over Soldier: 76 though, and that was Fan the Hammer. Fan the Hammer in its prior state was easily the best tank killing ability in the game, with one usage often being enough to eat through most tanks. With a potential damage of 420 in a matter of seconds and roll to reload for followup, it’s not surprising that it was so popular.
Being able to kill tanks is crucial to any team as there will likely be 1-2 tanks in every game, so McCree being both good at killing tanks in close range and doing a ton of damage at long range, he just had so much going for him that made it impossible for others to contest, even if his utility overall was lower. With Fan the Hammer nerfed, McCree all of a sudden becomes a lot less appealing in comparison to Soldier: 76. His damage is in short bursts of high damage which allows enemies to react with escape abilities while Soldier: 76’s is a ton of damage in a nonstop stream which makes it harder for teams to play around. Combat Roll has lost a lot of its utility now with Fan the Hammer so much weaker as it reloads an ability that really doesn’t do that much damage. Most importantly though, is that Soldier: 76 is now on roughly the same level as McCree in being able to kill tanks. With rocket doing so much good damage and the spread being irrelevant while up close and personal with a tank, Soldier: 76 can take out tanks about as fast as the nerfed McCree. His Helix Rockets alone do half the damage that Fan the Hammer does.
With Soldier: 76 now comparable to McCree along with the strengths he has over McCree that I mentioned earlier, it was already likely that Soldier: 76 would climb dramatically. However, as I mentioned earlier, Widowmaker was nerfed too. In particular, her bodyshots were drastically reduced, forcing players to be a lot more accurate or else be playing an incredibly weak hero. However, Soldier: 76 still does really good damage with bodyshots, which is incredibly important against heroes like Pharah who accurate long range hitscan is necessary for, but who aren’t always going to be showing their head for a Widowmaker to deal with. Soldier: 76 fills that niche with incredibly strong accurate bodyshots. Not only that, but he can also do amazing damage with headshots, making him a semi-sniper hero.
With these heroes nerfed, it created a perfect storm for Soldier: 76 to rocket to the top of the meta. He currently sits at a pickrate of 80% overall, with a pickrate of 100% on defense. With the current state of the game requiring teams to have both an accurate long range hitscan hero and a hero that can deal well with nerfs, Soldier: 76 fills that spot perfectly. Through purely nerfs to rival heroes, he’s risen to the top, and we’ll likely stay there for quite some time as he shares the same bounty as McCree once had, being the only hero who can really deal with tanks well while being effective at long range.
If you’re interested in analysis of the Overwatch meta, I make a weekly video series devoted to analysing and breaking down the previous week of competitive to form a stats-based tier list, show this week’s strategies, and break down every hero’s place individually before summing up the state of the meta. Here’s the latest episode, so be sure to check it out if that interests you.
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