Overwatch Hero Pools explained

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Overwatch will soon be introducing a new feature for competitive play that will shake things up in the upcoming ranked season.

Game director Jeff Kaplan described the new feature, Hero Pools, in a developer update today as a limited rotating selection of heroes that shifts every week. This means that there might be some weeks where heroes like Orisa or Moria aren’t available to play so players must experiment with other team competitions to succeed.

Kaplan said the reason for the implementation of Hero Pools is to address community criticisms of Overwatch’s slow-to-change meta.

“This is targeted at keeping the meta fluid, or the meta from stagnating, and really getting to more hero diversity,” Kaplan said.

This has been an issue that the game has faced for over a year. The developers attempted to replace the infamous GOATS meta, which typically consisted of three healers and three tanks, by introducing role-locking. But this only contributed to further limit the possibility of experimenting with team comps in an ever-stagnating meta.

Related: When are Hero Pools coming to Overwatch?

Hero Pools will only be implemented in competitive play, though. This function won’t appear in quick play or Arcade game modes, so players who just want to relax and practice with their favorite heroes are free to do so.

Kaplan explained that the developer team is open to adjusting the design of Hero Pools moving forward, proposing some possible changes such as having the Hero Pool change each match instead of every week.

Overwatch players have plenty of time to prepare for the introduction of this new feature considering it won’t hit the live servers until March.