The S Tier: It finally happened: Blizzard is removing Hero Stacking from Ranked Play. The Pros have been asking for 1 Hero Limit since early Closed Beta and while I was slow to jump on the bandwagon, I had no choice but to join them after last week’s Tracer and Lucio-filled 0HL experiment. It seems that Jeff Kaplan and the rest of the Dev Team have also joined us on the 1HL express and next Season’s Ranked Play will be devoid of Hero Stacking. With this in mind, I will be removing the S Tier until further notice.

The A Tier: The “Non-Negotiable” Core Heroes. This week only Mercy reached the A Tier, clocking in at a 97.15% Usage Rate. Reaching the A Tier, not to mention reaching nearly 100% Usage Rate is even more impressive than usual because this week’s Data is entirely Time-based. Mercy’s 97% Rate does not mean that she was used in 97% of all Sides -- but that she was used for 97% of all Time Elapsed in Matches, normalized by Match Length. Needless to say, it did not matter what game type was played, or if a Team was on Offense or Defense: if you did not have an Angel on your shoulder you were doing something wrong.

The B Tier: The “Balanced” Heroes. The Balanced Tier of Heroes encompassed an interesting spread in types of Usage this week. Reinhardt, for example, was used far more often on Payload Maps -- evenly on Offense and Defense -- than he was on King of the Hill. Heroes like Lucio and Zarya by contrast saw a huge spike in King of the Hill Usage, while Pharah, Soldier 76, and Reaper saw relatively balanced usage in all modes as the current Overwatch Meta's primary DPS Heroes.

The C Tier: The “Meta-Dependent” Heroes.The two Heroes who fall into the Meta-Dependent C Tier are victims of the return of 1 Hero Limit. Both Winston and Roadhog actually exhibit differences in Usage Rate type comparable to their B Tier neighbors: Roadhog was used much more often on Payload Maps than King of the Hill, while the opposite was true for Winston. It seems like any shift towards either game type’s direction would be enough to boost one of the pair into the B Tier -- both fell just short of its 40% Usage Rate cutoff.

The D Tier: The “Specialist, or Weak” Heroes. Once again, the Specialist Tier seems to indeed be filled with Specialists. Widowmaker leads the group as Overwatch’s only Sniper (until Ana!) -- and has still not quite recovered from the Balance Changes she received several weeks ago. A well-played Widow can still be devastating, just like a well-played Flanker like Genji or Tracer. It was fun to watch Tracer’s usage spike during 0HL rules, and tank now that they have reverted. Balancing around 1 Hero Lineups will give Blizzard more flexibility to make appropriate tweaks if they think Tracer or any of the other Heroes who fall into the D Tier need a little love. Speaking of which, McCree finds himself once more in the D Tier, but things are looking up for him if reports from Pros playing the PTR are to be believed. McCree has received some reduction in his damage falloff at midrange, which has Pro Level McCree mains like IDDQD chomping at the bit in excitement. Like Widowmaker, a well-played McCree can be devastating and I expect his Usage to spike as soon as the Balance Changes on the PTR go live.

The F Tier: The “We Exist, Barely” Heroes. One side effect of doing my Reports as Time-Based instead of Pick-Based is that the truly “Unused” Heroes take a beating in Usage Rate. Previously, if a player picked Hanzo as a joke pick at the beginning of the match, that pick would count as one whole pick. The same phenomenon would occur for a somewhat successful D.Va stall at the end of a long Payload Map. By swapping my Usage Rate calculation to be Time-based, these Heroes receive counts for the time they were actually played, and as such the F Tier is a bit more crowded than in previous Weeks. I would caution readers to keep an eye on the Heroes who are constant denizens of the F-Tier in the coming weeks -- if they’re truly only active for <5% of Match Times, then they are in definite need of some Balance Patch lovin’. Luckily for Zenyatta and D.Va, both are getting direct buffs in the upcoming Patch -- something I’m extremely excited about as a (not-so) closet D.Va main.

** I do not chose the placement of Heroes in a Tier, only the Range which defines the Tier. By determining Usage Rate directly from Hero Time Played in Tournament Matches, my data is Objectively determined, and not subjective at all.