Overwatch 2's 'worst' Hero has unbelievable win-rate at Pro level
While other games have deployed the strategy to release their new characters in a slightly to very overpowered state, Overwatch 2 had mixed results.
Heroes like Sojourn, Kiriko, and Junker Queen all had time at the top of the meta, and Ramattra has at least been viable in ranked and pro play.
On the other hand, Lifeweaver is far from competitively viable - receiving various buffs in several patches after his initial introduction to the game in mid-April this year.
Counterintuitively, Lifeweaver currently sits at a staggering win rate in the Overwatch League, meaning he's far above every other hero on the Overwatch 2 roster. What gives?
Lifeweaver flexes
For the longest time, Overwatch pro players and content creators have tried to make Lifeweaver work in ranked, failing to get into the top 500 leaderboards while one-tricking the hero.
Various issues with his kit have been suggested, ranging from a lack of sheer numbers output to an inability to deal damage effectively while charging Healing Blossom.
Shockingly, according to Overwatch analytics tool Winston's Lab, the new support hero is currently sitting at a ridiculous win percentage of 93.98%. The next best hero is Wrecking Ball, who only clocks in at a 63% win rate (66.7% unmirrored). That's more than 30% below Lifeweaver.
Indeed, the only hero that's part of the current meta-juggernaut composition of Winston/Sombrea/Tracer/Ana/Brigitte in Overwatch League is the Swedish Support hero with a 59.4% unmirrored win rate.
As you might have expected, something is fishy here, and the reason why Lifeweaver is showing such ridiculous win rates is precisely the reason why he's perceived to be underpowered.
Lifeweaver does a little trolling
The reason why Lifeweaver is dominating the win rate charts is that so far, he has only been played for a measly 25 minutes in Overwatch League's sixth season. That's compared to Tracer's 112 hours of gameplay.
The main culprit for Lifeweaver's statistical bamboozle is the Overwatch League team, Florida Mayhem, who pulled out the support hero in a match against the Vegas Eternal.
At the time, The Eternal was tied for last place in the Western region and was totally outmatched against the Mayhem, who decided to have a little fun with their prey. Toying around with their food, the team switched to Lifeweaver in a display of dominance, winning the maps they used him on.
As the win rate of Overwatch heroes is best calculated in the time the hero has been played on a map it won divided by the total time the hero has been played, only pulling it out for a single map and stomping the opponent during it will produce an astronomical win rate.
The only other application for Lifeweaver, despite showing off, is to use his Petal Platform at the start of an attack round to find an unexpected angle and hopefully allow the DPS to find a lucky pick to start the round.
During a recent balance discussion panel, the experts made up of Overwatch League coaches, managers, and broadcast talent agreed that the hero was quite obviously underpowered and his kit was far away from becoming competitively viable.
It seems Lifeweaver is far off from competitive viability on all levels. Given the repeated attention he has received in patches, it appears that Blizzard Entertainment is aware of the issue and is determined to help him out with further buffs.