Fans have known for a long time that the 2022 Overwatch League season will be played on a build of Overwatch 2. But when that news hit, fans had no idea what Overwatch 2 would even look like. Now that the 2022 season is quickly approaching, people are wondering what Sojourn will do in the hands of professional Overwatch players.
In the alpha, Sojourn got a nerf following input from testers. In the beta, she’s already proving to be a menace in the hands of a good hitscan player thanks to her secondary fire, which fires a deadly beam.
Many fans are now getting their hands on the new character and are having a lot of fun playing her, although some players who main squishy 200-health heroes may not have such a great time playing against her. Despite her deadly beam, some OWL pros actually think she’s not that strong. OWL fans could see a different hero taking the spotlight when the 2022 season begins.
Will Sojourn be viable in the Overwatch League?
Sojourn is a fun character to play. She has a projectile-based primary fire, which charges up her railgun and can shoot a deadly beam as a secondary fire. That beam can one-shot a 200-health player with a headshot, even if it isn’t fully charged. Without a headshot, and fully charged, she can almost one-shot squishier heroes, giving them precious seconds to get away or die from the next few bits of damage.
In the hands of the average player, Sojourn can be annoying if she’s hitting her shots. This got fans wondering if she would be viable in the OWL as one of the heroes that will experience a high pick rate. But the early signs point in a different direction.
Because she can be so deadly, fans are hopeful that she’ll make an early appearance in the OWL when it begins on May 5. But they should be prepared to see a lot more Soldier: 76 than Sojourn. This is due to a significant nerf that she underwent during the alpha.
“Now she seems really pretty weak and [she doesn’t have much] utility since her one-shot is so conditional compared to heroes like Hanzo or Widow who can also one-shot with no restrictions,” Houston Outlaws coach Jake Lyon told Dot Esports. “I think that, for me, the sad thing about Sojourn is [she] needs a more clear identity because I feel like [where she is now,] she’s just another sniper to me.”
The world needs more heroes, and that hero is Soldier: 76
As time went on through the alpha and now into the beta, more analysts, casters, and OWL players are saying that Soldier: 76 is the more viable pick. Fans should still expect to see some teams experiment with Sojourn in their comps, but many will be going for the safe bet with Soldier: 76.
Because shields were largely removed from the game, except for a few heroes who kept theirs, heroes that have a lot of mobility and can do a large amount of damage in a short amount of time will be incredibly viable in the meta leading up to the opening of the OWL. Heroes like Tracer, Soldier: 76, and Genji will likely make appearances at the beginning of the 2022 OWL season.
As Jake said, it’s likely that the developers will need to take a step back and decide what kind of hero Sojourn is going to be. That will likely have a direct impact on how she is played in the OWL and what kind of meta she settles into. Until then, OWL fans are likely to see her pop up here and there, but she probably won’t be a part of the early meta in the 2022 season.
