Winston might not be one of the most popularly used tanks in the lower ranks of Overwatch 2, but the silverback scientist can be a menace in the right team settings.
As a dive staple that is heavily played in the Overwatch League, Winston is among the top tank selections by players at high ranks on the competitive ladder, where team coordination is typically quite a bit stronger.
Countering a Winston player who is playing in conjunction with other dive heroes like Tracer, Sombra, and Genji can be extraordinarily difficult. Meanwhile, there are a handful of solid support options that can be used in such a comp as well.
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Kiriko, Lucio, and Moira all have strong survivability and can join the dive themselves. At the same time, Ana and Zenyatta are both high-quality dive support heroes that can provide massive value while maintaining distance from the opposing team.
To counter Winston, a player will need to not only know how to handle the hero himself, but they will also need to understand what the team around Winston will likely look like. A Winston by himself isn’t the scariest hero to go up against. It’s knowing how to deal with the dive that surrounds him that will determine whether you’re able to successfully deal with the classic Overwatch tank.
Winston’s abilities in Overwatch 2
To stop Winston, you first need to understand his abilities. With 350 health in role queue, Winston also has 200 armor, and he comes with a Barrier Projector shield on a 12-second cooldown.
The Barrier Projector is often thrown down as the tank dives into enemy lines, and it creates a sphere with a radius of five meters that can block 650 damage. The shield lasts eight seconds, meaning Winston only has to go about four seconds in between cooldowns if an enemy doesn’t blow up the shield before it expires.
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His primary weapon is a Tesla Cannon that can deal 60 damage per second and hit multiple targets with a maximum range of eight meters. With no other damage supporting the cannon, he can take out 200 health targets in just under four seconds.
But what makes him potentially oppressive to heroes that lack mobility is when he uses his Jump Pack ability. On a five-second cooldown, Winston can leap at enemies, and when he lands, he deals up to 50 damage depending on how close his enemies are to his landing spot.
Lastly, Primal Rage is his ultimate ability that boosts his health and turns him into an absolute unit that can hop around the map slapping anyone and everyone in his way. It also comes with a movement speed boost and lasts 10 seconds. If you see a Primal Rage begin, your best course of action is to find the safest spot possible, but that might be difficult because of all the knockback his Primal Rage is capable of.
How to counter Winston in Overwatch 2
If you’re solo queuing and a Winston is wrecking your team by himself, the simple solution is to select a hero that has the highest damage capacity at short range as possible. On the DPS side, Reaper and Junkrat are a couple of great selections.
There are a number of tanks that can go toe to toe with Winston. The main key is that the tank be prepared to peel for their support because Winston isn’t going to try to kill the tank. He’s going for their healers. A Junker Queen, Sigma, or Reinhardt who has their head on a swivel can easily chunk a diving Winston’s health.
On the support side of things, there are a few different approaches one could take, but it depends on the team composition around the Winston player. Heroes like Lucio, Moira, and Kiriko have such strong survivability tools that it will be difficult for Winston to dive them by himself. If you’re concerned about Winston solo diving you, a quick hero swap to any of those toons will do the trick.
If Winston is part of a more coordinated attack, you can either mirror his team’s dive composition with one of your own or you can go for heroes that won’t be easily bothered by a diving Winston, Tracer, and Sombra.
In those situations, having a healer with high healing throughput like Ana, Moira, and Baptiste can be effective. Any of those three paired with a Brigitte is likely the optimal course of action. Brig’s crowd control abilities and personal shield make her the flagship anti-dive support hero.
While Zenyatta is often the juiciest target to a team looking to dive, he can be one of the most impactful anti-dive heroes as well if he has a team playing around him appropriately. Though his healing throughput isn’t as strong as other heroes, if he’s peeled for properly, Orb of Discord paired with full-team focus fire on a Winston can absolutely obliterate the ape and send him back to spawn.
Here’s a consolidated list of some heroes that are best suited for countering Winston and a dive comp in a pinch:
- Reaper
- Junkrat
- Sigma
- Reinhardt
- Junker Queen
- Ana
- Moira
- Brigitte
