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Hero Pools just got a lot less complicated in the Overwatch League. After only two weeks of the feature being live, the league is adding weighted odds to the Hero Pools selection process. Jon Spector, senior director of the Overwatch League, revealed this change on a special episode of the Watchpoint show on March 15.
For the past two weeks, Hero Pools has operated on an even playing field. Any hero that had at least a 10 percent play rate over the past two weeks of the Overwatch League was eligible to be “banned” the next week. The feature, which disables one support hero, one tank hero, and two damage heroes per week, required the Watchpoint staff to randomly choose selections from a series of paper slips in a lottery drum.
This system led to bans on heroes that may not have entirely deserved it, however. Sniper hero Widowmaker barely made it into the drawing with a play rate under 11 percent, and she got disabled. Last week, support hero Moira suffered the same fate. Under the new rules, play rate has a factor in a hero’s chances of being disabled.
In the next Hero Pools drawing, the lottery system will have weighted odds. If a hero has a 10 to 25 percent play rate, they’ll have only one ticket in the lottery. Two tickets go to a hero with a 25 to 50 percent play rate. Heroes with 50 to 75 percent play rates will get three tickets and heroes with 75 percent play rate and above will get four tickets. This means that extremely popular heroes, such as D.Va and Ana in the current meta, will be more likely to be disabled with Hero Pools.
The weighted odds take effect in the next drawing, which will take place March 22 on the Watchpoint post-show.
Published: Mar 15, 2020 03:24 pm