The Three Main Roles in Blizzard's #1 Team-Based Shooter Game
Overwatch is a team-based FPS game that currently features a total of
32 characters, or "heroes". Heroes feature different abilities, but can be
separated into three main classes, or "roles", based on their
responsibilities and strengths within team strategy. These roles are
classified as "tank", "damage", and "support". The
current meta allows for two of each role per team (so 6 vs 6 games), but
Overwatch 2 plans to reduce this to 5v5 and only allow one tank player on
each team.
When picking a role, it is important to consider what you want to focus on
and/or your strengths. Below, you can find a list of general strengths and
weaknesses for each role. This list is not official and is definitely
controversial depending on which players and developers you talk to, but
it's a good place for beginners to start. Also, this is not advocating for players to only play one role, but it is wise to start somewhere and expand to multiple roles as the game gets easier.
TANK
Strengths
Teammate protection (e.g. shields/barriers)
Taking space and pushing forward (in particular, some tanks, known as "off tanks" are great at a strategy known as "diving" which is flanking the team to turn them around, pick off easy and unprotected enemies, and to create overall chaos)
Initiating team fights
Weaknesses
Not stealthy (e.g. loud/slow/cumbersome, in most cases)
Require a lot of heals and cooperation due to their size and receiving a lot of incoming damage
Team fights requiring long distance damage
DAMAGE
Strengths
Damage output (which is often referred to as "DPS", or "damage per second")
Movement (some prioritize speed/escape while others are better at stealth)
Finishing/capitalizing on team fights and picking off weak/solo opponents
Weaknesses
Many have a large learning curve that requires both mechanical skill and good game sense to master
Other team can easily switch heroes to counter and negate DPS impact - but this goes for any role
Positioning can be challenging (e.g. sometimes solo flanks are super effective, but DPS also must peel for heals and to help Support
SUPPORT
Strengths
Healing output
Boosting individual players to give them an edge over enemies (this is known as "pocketing")
Versatile (e.g. can fluctuate between healing, damage, and utility like speed boosts depending on what is needed)
Weaknesses
Squishy (aka extremely vulnerable to attacks as most start with low base health and most without shields)
Healing speeds (e.g. some can only heal one hero at a time while others can heal more in their immediate area but at a slower rate)
Low mobility (with the exception of mostly Lucio, support heroes tend to be bad at escaping fights when the enemy engages)
Given all the information about the roles, it is still recommended to try playing each one to get better at the game.
For more general information about the game of Overwatch, click here.
