Overwatch players get more ways to improve with OWL’s new Hero Rankings tool

The Overwatch League is giving players of all skill tiers new ways to level up their abilities in-game, thanks to new detailed hero rankings.

IBM Watson’s Power Rankings tool has made it easier than ever to see which Overwatch League players are the best on their respective role, whether it’s support, DPS or tank.

Basically, the algorithm keeps track of each map, player, team composition and the outcome to determine a player’s overall rating and their impact.

Previously, the Power Rankings only kept track of individual players and their roles, but now, it’s expanding to include each of the game’s 32 heroes.

Player scores on each hero are based on a couple of key factors: their total time played on that hero and the impact the player had on the outcome of the match, using the existing Watson algorithm.

As such, players will now be able to see who the absolute best in the league is on each and every character, so you’ll know who to observe and learn from.

For instance, if you’re a D.Va main, you can check out the top ranked D.Va players in OWL and see for yourself how they tackle certain situations on stream or in league matches.

You can also load up the OWL replay viewer on PC and specifically check out that player’s perspective during their matches to learn even more about how they approach the game.

It will be very interesting to see if these power rankings and the algorithm ever make its way to the retail version of Overwatch and to let fans see who the best competitors on the entire ladder are.

With Overwatch 2 still in development, hopefully, we can see something this detailed in addition to the Top 500 leaderboards we’ve had for the past few years.