Overwatch ‘Wrecking’ the competition: How will Hammond fit into the meta?

Overwatch’s newest hero has ascended into play this week. The robo-tank, wrecking ball gizmo operating hamster has finally been unveiled to the community, but how will his play style affect the game itself? In this guide we’ll break down the mechanics of Hammond the Wrecking Ball as he gets set to wreak havoc in quick play as well as the competitive circles.

I’m gonna wreck it

New heroes in Overwatch are no strangers to high mobility and high-flying attributes in the game, and Hammond is no different in that approach as the Overwatch development team is finding ways to make the game mobile and accessible from all angles. Hammond’s kit offers a lot of variance as he swoops in with his wrecking ball formation and his grapple hook to achieve those flanks that can be difficult to spot.

The 600 health hamster can be considered a strong secondary tank that can follow up the engages from damage threats on your team, but lacks in overall defenses for your team due to lack of shields and barriers for protection. Hammond’s role in the game is simply to bash into the opposition seemingly at will and coordinate attacks in order to get picks and ‘keep the ball rolling’ for his team.

With his low cooldowns and consistent forward pressure, he has the potential to synergize effectively with heroes like Doomfist, Winston, Tracer and Genji for some seriously scary and diverse dive compositions. On the defensive end, Hammond can be used for teamfight neutralization as his wrecking ball into downward dive combination makes him a formidable crowd control threat with each knock up landed.

Whether you’re looking to kick your offense into high gear, or simply charge into the backline and find a much needed pick, Hammond has the ability to create problems and frustrate the enemy if used effectively.

Read also: Is Overwatch dead?

Other patch changes

For the other heroes in Overwatch, passive damage threats like Mei have been slightly buffed at a distance with their damage drop off not being reduced at range. This change means that Mei’s icicles will do the same damage at five feet or 150 feet from her enemies. Range drop off damage for several heroes were also tweaked as McCree and Soldier 76 have more damage at range with the ratios being decreased from 50% drop off to 30%.

In continuation with this trend, Widowmaker’s assault rifle damage has also been lowered at range as the OW developers are looking to incentivize sniping from a distance rather than relying on the automatic rifle to do the damage for you.

The highly criticized Sombra changes have also been implemented into the game after much deliberation from Blizzard and the hardcore Overwatch community. After several weeks of trials on the PTR server, the Sombra changes are set to change giving her much more mobility and invisibility time with the translocator changes.