Overwatch 2 devs reveal how hero bans will work in Season 16

The Overwatch 2 devs have explained exactly how heroes will be banned in ranked matches starting in Season 16.

At long last, hero bans are finally coming to Overwatch 2 with the start of Season 16, giving players a chance to “balance” the game in their favor by removing certain characters.

After awhile, every OW2 patch gets “solved” and meta dominant heroes or strategies emerge, dominating the ladder. This is largely inevitable in any game, but now, players will be able to ban any character they deem too powerful.

In a new blog post, the devs delved into how this hero ban system will work and what they’ll gain from combing through the data of characters that get axed.

How will hero bans work in Overwatch 2?

At the beginning of a ranked game, Match text chat will be disabled and players won’t be able to see the enemy team during the ban phase.

To begin, players will select their “Preferred Hero” to give their teammates an idea of which characters they prefer to play. While this won’t prevent that character from being banned, as there’s no “Protect” phase, this will certainlly effect how the squad decides to vote.

Additionally, players can still change their Preferred Hero during the Ban Phase and communicate via text or voice with their team to better strategize.

Blizzard

From there, the Ban Phase commences, with each team allowed to ban two heroes. Each player will select three heroes they want to ban, with their first pick worth seven points, the second worth five and the third worth three.

Players can also completely pass the ban phase if they like by selecting ready, effectively leaving the choices up to their teammates. If all players choose to opt out of bans, then the game will proceed with every hero available.

As per Blizzard, here’s how the whole process will play out:

• The team with the most votes for one Hero will be considered the “first” team, and their most voted Hero will be guaranteed to be banned. If both teams are tied for the most votes for a single Hero, the first team is decided randomly.
• The other team becomes the “second” team, and both of their bans happen next. If the Heroes they voted to ban were not the first team’s most voted Hero, then their most and second most voted Heroes will be banned. 
• If the second team’s most or second most voted Hero was also the first team’s most voted Hero, then the second team’s third most voted Hero is used instead.
• Finally, the second most voted Hero on the first team will be banned, with the same caveat the second team had when banning their Heroes.
• In cases where the number of votes for a Hero are tied, the Hero that was voted by the most players in the lobby (not the total number of votes) for is banned. 
• If Heroes are still tied, ties are broken randomly.
• No more than two Heroes in each role can be banned. If two Heroes in the same role have already been banned and a team’s next most voted Hero is in the same role, those votes are ignored and this team’s next most voted Hero in a different role is banned instead.

According to the devs, this system will let the team get valuable info on which heroes are too strong and in need of nerfs. On the flip side, heroes that are never banned could be in need of some improvements.

The devs also say that they’ll be looking at data showing which heroes are banned on certain maps, which platform and region.

Furthermore, Season 17 will introduce map voting, so players will have even more choice available to them in the months ahead.