Give it up for the healers: Ana and Mercy are Overwatch’s top “mains” across the season four competitive ladder, according to statistics from Overwatch data site Omnic Meta.
Omnic Meta defines a main as a hero that’s played in more than 50 percent of a player’s competitive games. Using the data collected from Overwatch’s competitive season four, Omnic Meta was able to determine which heroes are popular as mains. And the findings show that Mercy and Ana are the most popular. These numbers are representative of the 30 percent of players that main Overwatch heroes.
Mercy finds herself a main most often in the bronze, silver, gold, and platinum tier levels of the competitive Overwatch ladder. As skill level rises, however, players switch over to Ana in the diamond, master, and grandmaster tiers. Reinhardt is a close second among all of those tiers, except bronze.
So what does this mean?
Omnic Meta’s data reinforces some things we already know about each hero: Mercy, especially at lower levels, has an incredibly high healing output—she does much more healing than Ana in the hands of a less skilled player. Her ultimate, especially after her recent buff, makes her especially strong in keeping her team in fights.
Ana also has one of the highest skill caps. In the hands of a great player, she has the highest healing output, plus she does a lot of damage. And so it makes sense that players would want to make use of her powerful kit. Of all players in grandmaster, Omnic Meta reported, 32 percent of grandmaster mains are Ana players, which is much higher for top mains in other tiers. This data was likely collected before Ana’s nerf—though we don’t predict Ana will be chosen much less regardless.
Reinhardt’s appeal is obvious: He’s the only anchor tank playable right now in Overwatch. Whether that will change when Orisa becomes available is yet to be seen. Thirty-five percent of Overwatch mains play tank mains, while 45 percent are support mains. That leaves 20 percent of players that main heroes to focus on defense and offensive heroes. It’s likely because DPS players have “a pool of heroes that they play from,” according to Omnic Meta.
Omnic Meta pulls its data from 80,000 PC player and 85,000 console player accounts.
