Genji leads in play time for Overwatch’s Quick Play, while Mercy gets the title in Competitive

Genji is Overwatch’s top hero when it comes to play time in Quick Play, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan confirmed on the game’s forum.

Kaplan decided to share a hero ranking list—ranking only by hero play time—on the Overwatch forum in a post, which has players discussing their perceived play time. Genji is a top pick in Quick Play matches within Aug. 2 to 9, he wrote, followed next by Doomfist. Hanzo rounds out the top three, followed by McCree and Soldier: 76.

Genji tops the list with a major play time difference—he’s got a dramatic lead, Kaplan said. And Kaplan was quick to point out that even his stat rankings can be misleading. “The stat here is ‘hero playtime’ and literally one hero could have had one more second of play time over another hero,” he wrote. “That doesn’t make someone better or worse, more OP, etc.”

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Mercy is the Competitive ladder’s outlier, like Genji in Quick Play, within the same time frame. D.Va follows, with Lucio, Genji, and Soldier: 76 filling out the top five.

“I’m not trying to make any points here,” Kaplan added. “I am just sharing the information since you’re having a discussion about what heroes you feel are in games right now. Obviously, what platform, region, skill rating, game mode, etc., you’re in has an influence on this as well.”

Here’s the full list in Quick Play hero play time from Aug. 2 to 9:

1. Genji (Genji is pretty far out in front, Kaplan said.)
2. Doomfist
3. Hanzo
4. McCree
5. Soldier: 76
6. Mercy
7. Widowmaker
8. Junkrat
9. D.Va
10. Pharah
11. Tracer
12. Ana
13. Reaper
14. Lucio
15. Zenyatta
16. Torbjorn
17. Winston
18. Mei
19. Symmetra
20. Bastion
21. Sombra
22. Reinhardt
23. Zarya
24. Roadhog
25. Orisa

And Competitive:

1. Mercy (She’s got a big lead, Kaplan said.)
2. D.Va
3. Lucio
4. Genji
5. Soldier: 76
6. Winston
7. Ana
8. Zarya
9. Reinhardt
10. McCree
11. Zenyatta
12. Reaper
13. Doomfist
14. Pharah
15. Tracer
16. Hanzo
17. Junkrat
18. Mei
19. Symmetra
20. Widowmaker
21. Torbjorn
22. Roadhog
23. Orisa
24. Bastion
25. Sombra

As Kaplan mentioned, hero play time isn’t exactly a great measure of a hero’s strength in Overwatch on its own. To really have a grasp at the game’s balance, we’d need more information—that he chose not to give—he added.

Before heading out of the thread, Kaplan also mentioned that Blizzard is looking into adding more detailed statistics to the Career Profile and statistics pages. A forum user suggested adding map-based statistics to the page, and Kaplan would love to. The only problem is that the team is working on limited time. “I really wish we had more time to spend on the career profile and stats pages,” Kaplan wrote. “I think we could do a lot more. I am hoping that we get some time in the future to make it better.”