When the Overwatch community is surprised by a new hero announcement, you know it’s going to be an interesting choice. Hammond, or Wrecking Ball as he’s known in the roster, is a hyper-intelligent space hamster. Yes, even for Overwatch, this is one weird-ass little hero and after weeks in the PTR, he’s finally rolled his way onto console. So how does he work?
Well, his weapon of choice is a giant rolling robot suit, akin to the Destroyers from Star Wars, but a little cuter. But depsite looking pretty distinct, the way he plays is also already having some pretty big impacts on Overwatch.
He came in like a wreeeckkiinng balllll
Wrecking Ball is far from the first tank capable of dropping in behind enemies, but his movement abilities can easily overwhelm the backline. Support characters in the PTR are struggling to deal with his unpredictable, fast movements and powerful weaponry once he closes in on them.
Being able to literally barrel into enemies and knock them back, deal damage and drop him straight into the middle of the action is also proving to be quite a challenge to the usual roster of frontline heroes. His ability to break and disrupt any semblance of a frontline is sure to change how tanks and traditional damage dealers operate on the front line.
How do you stop this Furry Threat?
As the community is still adjusting to this furry menace, hero counters to Wrecking Ball haven’t been formalised yet, but so far, snipers seem to work well, able to overcome his fast movement speed and awkward directional changes. Because the way Hammond gets around is neither precise nor elegant, a Widowmaker standing up on narrow perches can keep sight of the little hamster without worrying too much about any retaliation. Other than that, taking down Wrecking Ball seems to require a team effort if the player in question is worth their salt.
While Zenyatta might feel like a good choice to counter Wrecking Ball’s health, alone he’ll be quickly run over. Immobile heroes are probably going to suffer thanks to Wrecking Ball, too. Likewise crowd controlling characters such as Mei and Orisa might have a harder time pinning this furball down.
Where Wrecking Ball is really going to make the difference though, is in how players view the map geometry now. Tight corridors allow him to get up speed and plough through entire teams, while blind corners provide the perfect opportunity to deliver a surprising killing blow. Out in the open, Wrecking Ball is more at risk, despite his damage output and health he can’t provide himself much cover.
This means that sloppy players could potentially be lured into ambushes, but like your pet hamster, they are most at home running down small pipes. These will all have to be accounted for by players in the future, but there’s more still.
Hammond can appear seemingly out of nowhere
Wrecking Ball is not a primary tank. Much like Roadhog and Zarya his defensive capabilities, and mobility make him more self-serving then bullet sponging. As a secondary tank, Wrecking Ball naturally holds the attention of the enemy team and could serve as a great disruptor, especially as an exciting and new hero. This also means that creeping through shortcuts and small allies won’t necessarily harm a team’s composition.
His ability to launch into the air is a little sloppy, but that only makes using him more unpredictable. Like we said earlier, this can mean narrow and precise platforms might be out of reach but, in our time playing as him and playing against him, we’ve seen countless support, defence and flanker heroes come face to furry face with the Wrecking Ball from almost out of nowhere.
Interestingly, Wrecking Ball can exploit several shortcuts, and even create his own. We all know that some maps provide small shortcuts to the more agile players. Hanamura’s second point for instance has an exposed left flank for any hero that can traverse the drop.
Wrecking Ball isn’t the first tank that can handle that, but his ability will give him even greater variety with practice. Volskaya Industries second point has a low hanging piece of scenery on its right flank, a piece of scenery that can be exploited by Wrecking Ball’s grappling hook and get him past where most defence teams set up.
And this is only what has been discovered in the PTR. Luckily, his ability to launch forward greatly reduces how much control the player has, and while leaping over drops, knockback abilities and a Mei wall can quickly prove Wrecking Ball’s undoing.
Where does he fit in a team composition?
Like all new heroes, Wrecking Ball is going to prove a challenge at first for players to resolve, but working with him is pretty simple. Players can take advance of his unorthodox traversal by playing diving roles and being ready to burst into action on his signal. Using Wrecking Ball and a few flankers like Tracer, Reaper or Sombra can be devasting if they attack from behind.
Likewise, his ability to ambush teams from any direction can be used well with high damage heroes on certain maps. The streets of Kings Row give Wrecking Ball a lot of opportunities to grapple and plenty of cover for other heroes.
While playing a map on defence, Wrecking Ball can struggle a bit with his reduced need to move around the map. He can lockdown small areas of the map, but attackers could just avoid any corridor he is likely to haunt. He is, at least in PTR, primarily and ambusher and flanker, with an extremely high pool of health.
Well coordinated teams, however, might be able to pair Wrecking Ball with slower heroes that could bait attackers into a trap. That’s more of an experimental tactic though. As a flanker, Wrecking Ball and Zen work well together on the same team picking and eliminating targets, as long as a third hero can defend the robot monk.
While perhaps the most unorthodox hero to enter Overwatch (which is saying something) Wrecking Ball is going to change the meta in some interesting ways. What we’ve listed above are all things seen and experienced in the PTR, which are of course, likely to change with his official release. But right now this little hamster is a bit of a thorn in the side of enemy teams, and seems purpose built to hunt in the less open spaces on the map.
