Roadhog can be more effective, but Winston is a lot easier to pull off. You miss your hook and you’re pretty worthless against her for 8 seconds. With Winston, you jump to meet her in the air twice and she’s fried, and she can’t stay up there forever, while you can chase her very easily if she tries to alight on a ledge. And yeah, Roadhog really isn’t a Tank. He doesn’t fulfill the main tank roles (establishing a line and a point to push through), he’s basically a sniper/tankbuster with 600 health.
I spent the entire weekend sick, so I tucked in with a bottle of nyquil and played overwatch all day. I think I went from 0 to level 18. I now know enough about the maps to play who I want.
Roadhog is by far my best character. I don’t consider him to be a tank, but I find that 1 v 1 he is almost invincible. I might just be lucky when I use him, but I usually go 15/1 KD with about 70% hook success. That hook alone is overpowered. Sucks his ult is so weak.
I have found that earlier comments about Lucio were spot on! My best healer by far!
Roadhog’s ult is a potential gamewinner, really. Not only is it great for environmental kills, but it will shred a reinhardt shield and has all sorts of utility.
The piggy’s real weakness is that he’s a selfish character. He has no good way to protect teammates and, since he has no shields, is basically an ult battery for the enemy team. I would agree that tank isn’t a great description of his role, since the word implies that you can do stuff to mitigate damage. He’s just a tubby attack/defense hybrid.
Not only that, but Whole Hog has lots of knockback, and can be used to shove the enemy team off the objective so overtime can expire. I’ve kept at least one game from staying in overtime that way.
I do think that you guys were right about one thing. Tracer when played by a pro can be ridiculously strong. Last night I played a tracer who was ridiculously powerful, just hunting down and killing one after the other. Even when facing the whole team she just darted out in between buildings and causing such a mess that we couldn’t focus on the objective. She had a powerful team with her, but alone caused enough mayhem to bring down the chance for a solid game.
Oh and also, I hate Bastion. He is easy to counter, however it sucks when you are a squishy and step into an empty alley just to be sprayed down by the guy.
I’ve found it very hard to get decent value off Whole Hog - you’re very vulnerable. That said, if you combo it with Zarya’s Graviton Surge ult, it will kill everyone caught in it, like a cheapo version of the Barrage+Graviton combo. 
That said, if you can consistently land your hooks, Roadhog is an absolute monster. Not useful as a “main tank” (if you’re running one tank it should not be him), but absolutely great as an extra DPS/sniper char. Just keep in mind that since you have no armor, Soldier76 absolutely shreds you.
Pardon the bump, but while I don’t own this, I’ve finally been able to play it starting about two weeks ago. Good times. I still haven’t tried every hero. So far lots of Lúcio, Zenyatta, and most of the tanks. I tried the sniper healer lady in that Halloween game and was hot garbage; my teammates were moving too quick for me to heal them. It’s funny how salty people get in quickplay matches. And also how mismatched the teams get sometimes. I like my matches to go down to the wire, but it seems like 2/3 are roll or get rolled. I haven’t tried comp. Probably won’t unless I get my own copy.
The current brawl-- I forget what it’s called-- is three Pharas, three Mercies per team, with the cooldown time on Phara’s jump reduced so that you can stay in the air indefinitely. The result is this crazy aerial mosh pit, where if you lose altitude, you die. Highly recommended-- I haven’t had this much fun with Overwatch in a while.
Ah, it’s called Justice Rains From Above.
Only if you’re playing Mercy or maybe Ana; Zenyatta’s got some heavy offensive support power with the Orb of Discord. Basically it’s a de-buff that causes the target to take some percentage more damage… from ANYONE. He’s also got a healing Orb of Harmony that he can put on someone to heal them over time.
The trick to Zenyatta is to keep both orbs in play constantly; the way I try and do it is to try and identify who on the enemy team is getting shot at the most, and pop them with the OoD, and then whoever’s either tanking or getting beat down gets the OoH. Then I basically fire my shots downrange at the baddies, trying to keep them on teh OoDed player.
Coordinating Zenyatta with the more DPS-centric characters can be really effective on either offense or defense.
Ana is very hard. I’ve been playing her more often, but I have trouble getting value half the time because it’s so hard to land shots with her.
Which is fine by me (not that I want you to have a bad time), because sniper classes *should be difficult *to play. They definitely erred in making Hanzo and Black Widow far too easy to hit with, especially moving targets. Even most military-themed FPS games have harder to play sniper classes, and that’s not setting a high bar.
I still think Activision has some work to do in balancing the characters; some are just too hard to play well, and others are overpowered unless the opposing team plays a specific counter, or set of counters.
Also, what’s the deal with this new character Sombra I saw last night when I had to reinstall the game?
Are you scoped? It’s must easier to hipfire with Ana, and you don’t really need to scope unless your target is pretty far away or moving quickly - unscoped shots are projectile with some travel time, and scoped shots are hitscan.
I would suggest basically never scoping to start with.
She’s not a very forgiving character to play if you’re bad mechanically, though. I’m terrible with her, but sometimes if I have a really beefy frontline and we’re on attack I’ll Ana just for the nanoboost to bust chokes.
I don’t have any trouble landing scoped shots on my allies, and I’m getting better at hipfired healing, but still not great. I don’t find it any easier to land shots unscoped, tbh.
Thing is, the hit boxes for projectiles are more generous than for hitscan, so you have a bigger margin for error. But if you’re nailing them anyway, good for you! 
On a more serious note, hipfire also gives you more spatial awareness, and that’s essential for a support.
Sombra just released on the PTR. They also added a cool Arcade mode with 3v3 and 1v1 play. They also bumped D.Va’s health up to 600, which might be a little overboard.
Sombra is the new Offense hero, a hacker who specializes in disruption and shutdowns. She can cloak, teleport, disable enemy abilities and ults, and clear enemy barriers with her ult. She doesn’t seem to do much damage, but her sapper skills more than make up for it. She’s a lot of fun to play. Hacking prevents enemy players from using any abilities or ults for several seconds.
F.Pu and I ran some experiments with Sombra in a custom game, and here are our findings:
[ol]
[li]Hacking prevents activation of an ultimate, but does not disable an active ult.[/li][li]Hacking knocks Bastion out of seige mode.[/li][li]Torb turrets WILL target a cloaked Sombra at point blank range only.[/li][li]Hacking does not affect Symmetra turrets or teleporter.[/li][li]Symmetra turrets WILL target a cloaked Sombra at reduced range.[/li][li]Hacking does NOT disable passives like double jump or wall climb.[/li][li]Hacking does not penetrate Reinhardt, Winston, or Zarya’s barriers. Barrier will interrupt hack if placed during hack attempt.[/li][li]Sombra’s translocator can be thrown through Reinhardt and Winston barriers.[/li][li]EMP clears active barriers, including overheal from Sound Barrier ult.[/li][li]Hacking interrupts D.Va’s boost ability.[/li][li]Hacking DOES target through D.Va’s Defense Matrix ability.[/li][li]D.Va’s Self Destruct ult cannot be disabled with hack or EMP once activated.[/li][li]Sombra can escape a Graviton Surge using the translocator.[/li][li]Junkrat trap on top of translocator beacon works great. Sombra cannot escape a Steel Trap with a translocator, even if the translocator is already deployed.[/li][li]Junkrat traps and mines cannot be hacked.[/li][li]Hacking and EMP have no effect on RIP Tire ult.[/li][li]Hacking prevents Lucio crossfade, but does not stop passive speed/heal effect.[/li][li]Hacking does NOT remove Zenyatta discord orbs, but prevents placement of new ones.[/li][li]Winston’s Tesla Gun WILL target a cloaked Sombra.[/li][/ol]
Sombra seems almost unplayably weak.
Keep in mind that at this point, 2 supports is mandatory - without a second support, you can’t stay alive in teamfights if one of them gets picked off (which happens often) and you have a much harder time keeping the supports alive in general.
While 2+ tanks is not mandatory, it’s generally well-advised for a number of reasons.
At the moment, most pro teams have either one or two pure DPS heroes - heroes only really good for their damage output or utility in a fight. And these guys really have to turn up the damage. Can you honestly tell me that you’d favor Sombra over Tracer or McCree or even Soldier in any mode? Her damage output is just too bad; it’s virtually impossible to win a 1v1 with her. As the guys from YourOverwatch put it, Sombra loses most 1v1s against Zenyatta. That’s not good enough for a pure DPS hero. While her ult is incredible (and make no mistake, EMP pretty much guarantees a full teamwipe if you put it down into a Graviton Surge), actually getting to the point you can use it is hard to justify, given how shoddy her damage output is. She feels like a weaker Tracer.
That’s true for higher-level competitive play, of course, but there’s a wide range of gameplay levels between “people just picking up the game for the first time” and “pro.” I mean, I play Symmetra often, and while she’s never going to work in comp, she’s a lot of fun in quick play. I imagine that Sombra will scratch a similar itch.
BPC: Sombra’s damage output may be lacking, but it’s difficult to gauge just how much of an effect a skilled player can disrupt an enemy team with hacking and EMP. I can see her being a counter to Torbjorn and Reinhardt at minimum. She’ll probably be tweaked into a viable comp hero for skilled players. A good Sombra will probably deal low damage, occasionally picking off isolated and wounded targets of opportunity, but mostly stealthing around behind enemy lines and screwing with them. I think she’ll require more team coordination than many other characters, but I see her as a more tactics-focused counterpart to Genji.
Being able to prevent a Mercy res during overtime is huge, it could easily turn the tide of a close game. Sneaking behind a Reinhardt and hacking down his barrier is huge. You don’t need nearly as much team DPS when one of your heroes can instantly shut off Reinhardt’s barrier for several seconds.
Also, she’s about stealth, not open 1v1 battles. Like Reaper, letting your target see you means you’ve already screwed up. Unlike Reaper, Sombra doesn’t have the raw damage to make her competitive in a straight up fight. But she can still cloak/teleport to safety, regroup, and strike again without being seen. I think the best Sombras will be those who maximize her stealth and mobility and only rarely use their weapon.
IMO, Sombra is Blizzard’s attempt at making a more tactical offense hero, and to introduce more abstract gameplay affects in lieu of straightforward damage. I’m very interested to see how she plays out, and I can’t wait until the novelty wears off enough that I can just hop into a QP and have a decent chance of practicing with her.
Anyone seeing much cheating? We encountered our first obvious aimbotting yesterday. But it’s otherwise seemed pretty clean. Again, quick play only.