Overwatch 2’s Perk system finally made OW’s hardest Tank worth playing

Overwatch 2’s new Hero Perks system gave certain characters new life and viability, including the once niche dive tank: Wrecking Ball.

Wrecking Ball is one of the most unique heroes in Overwatch 2, considered to be a fearsome dive tank by many but also one of the most frustrating characters to have on your team due to his complete independence. For a time, Wrecking Ball was considered a niche hero, with a conclave of Wrecking Ball masters who can do disgusting things with his kit.

But with Hero Perks added in Season 15, some heroes managed to get a bit of a boost to their viability, giving them the push they needed. Wrecking Ball is one of those heroes, with Perks that directly contribute to his survivability and kill potential.

Wrecking Ball is rolling over matches with Perks

Wrecking Ball was always great at disrupting the backline, often forcing the enemy team to swap team comps to directly counter an effective Wrecking Ball.

However, one of Wrecking Ball’s greatest weaknesses are the hard counters that shut him down. Characters like Roadhog, Sombra, Cassidy, Brigitte, and Ana can make a Wrecking Ball ineffective with proper CC.

Blizzard

His kill potential was usually a bit on the iffy side as well. Although his damage could be augmented with double boops, good tracking, and the help of other dive heroes, his solo kill potential was (rightfully) not the greatest in the game compared to some of the other dive tanks.

Now, Perks are here, and they help directly address some of Wrecking Ball’s shortcomings. Throughout a match, you can gain experience for heroes the more you play them and unlock new abilities or skills that can change the way a character plays. For Wrecking Ball, his Perks don’t completely erase his weaknesses, but certainly makes them more manageable, which is a healthy way for Perks to function.

His Minor Perks offer two compelling choices

For starters, Wrecking Ball’s best minor Perk, Pack Rat, increases the amount of healing he receives from health packs. This might sound underwhelming at first glance, but it allows Wrecking Ball to gain an insane 175 HP from a mini health pack and 350 from a mega health pack.

With proper knowledge of health pack locations, this increases his survivability by a lot, and allows him to go deeper in disrupting the enemy backline without retreating to his healers. Effectively, it makes it much harder for the enemy team to shut a proper Wrecking Ball down.

Blizzard Entertainment

Pack Rat will be a Wrecking Ball’s usual go-to option, especially as enemies will often make the effort to hard counter him. But if you find survivability to be a non-issue in some games, then his other Minor Perk, Steamroller, is decent alternative.

Steamroller allows Wrecking Ball to deal 100% more damage to Tanks, which helps keep his damage a bit more consistent. Wrecking Ball primarily wreaks havoc to the backline, but this Perk does help him do some impactful damage to tanks as well.

One Major Perk is greatly underrated

After sticking with Wrecking Ball, another fantastic option for him is his Major Perk, Hang Time. Initially, a good portion of the community were lukewarm about this Perk, as it increased the windup time for his Piledriver ability while increasing its damage. Many Wrecking Ball players were concerned the increased windup time makes it easier to shutdown the Piledriver ability as enemies have more time to react.

Fortunately, though, the damage boost from Hang Time greatly offsets the increased windup time, nearly one-shotting Tracer and allowing Wrecking Ball to increase his kill potential. Piledriver makes his burst damage very high, and paired with a proper dive comp and follow up from your team, and Wrecking Ball totally destroys his competition.

Blizzard

Transfer Efficiency is generally less useful, but it does incentivize Wrecking Ball sharing his Adaptive Shields a bit more. Still, it’s generally recommended to take Hang Time and increase his overall damage, as it allows Wrecking Ball to be more independent.

One of the healthier aspects of this is that Wrecking Ball still has counterplay even at Level 3. An Ana who takes Groggy combined with other counters like Cassidy or Sombra can still effectively shut down a Wrecking Ball, so it’s nice that, while Wrecking Ball’s Perks do compensate for many of his weaknesses, it doesn’t clean them up completely.

However, having more choices and drastically increased strength as a hero makes him worth playing now more than ever, where he previously felt like a specialist character that was really hard to pick up.

Wrecking Ball is just one of the winners of the Hero Perks patch, but there are other heroes dominating as well with their new shiny Perks (as well as those floundering.) Read here to see what the best Perks you can take for each hero are.