OverwatchOverwatch Wrecking Ball Guide and Overview

Wrecking Ball is a disruption-first Tank built around mobility, area control, and chaos creation rather than raw frontline durability. He may be an adorable hamster, but he won’t hesitate to slam down and blow up the entire enemy team.

In team compositions, Wrecking Ball's primary objective is to deny the enemy team space. No matter where they set up, Ball rolls in, boops them away, and tells them they can’t sit here. He doesn’t hold ground in the traditional sense, but he steals attention and cannot be ignored. By forcing multiple enemies to respond to him at once, Ball removes pressure from his team. 

He excels at isolating vulnerable enemies and controlling the pace of fights. When played correctly, the enemy team can never relax or fully focus on what is in front of them because they never know when he’ll come rolling in.

TLDR

Play As

• Scout before fully committing. Roll through without using Adaptive Shield to learn enemy positions and bait out their crowd control.
• Path to attack from the enemy's rear or flank. Don’t roll or swing head-on into the enemy because that will make it easy for them to stop you.
• Go airborne, drop Minefield, then slam down to boop and keep enemies in your Mines.

Play Against

• Track his Adaptive Shield. If he hasn’t used them, don’t use your stuns yet, or he’ll easily survive.
• Pick a hero with kockbacks or stuns. Dealing with Ball is very hard without good CC.
• Don’t get isolated. Instead, position with at least one teammate so you don’t get caught in a 1v1 with Ball.

Strengths

Unmatched Mobility

Wrecking Ball can traverse enormous distances very quickly. Grappling Claw is also a short cooldown, so he can reposition often. There’s nowhere on a map that Wrecking Ball cannot quickly access.

Disruptive

Boops and knock-ups break enemy positioning and force them into disadvantageous areas. Wrecking Ball can knock the entire enemy team off high ground, and by the time they get back, he will definitely have another grapple.

Stalling

Adaptive Shield, health packs, quick movement, and spin to win. No one is better than Wrecking Ball at stalling objectives and buying time for the rest of their team to return to the objective. He’s very difficult to eliminate and often wastes a ton of the enemy's time.

Weaknesses

Vulnerable to Crowd Control

Unless he’s using Adaptive Barrier, Ball doesn’t have much counterplay to CC outside of just tanking the damage. Against teams that have multiple heroes with stuns, he really struggles to do anything.

Relies on Game Sense

Wrecking Ball isn’t so lethal that he can just mow over a team. Instead, he needs to have a keen understanding of what the enemy is trying to do, and know how to interrupt or stop their plan. It’s also crucial for Wrecking Ball players to track cooldowns and enemy positions. There is a lot to keep track of, and if you're just swinging and slamming without a clear purpose, you're going to lose a lot of games.

Mechanically Demanding

To really excel on Wrecking Ball, you need to spend a good amount of time learning his specific tech. Wall jumps, double boops, sling shots, and grapple retraction are just a few of the things you’ll need to learn to maximize his kit. You also need quick reflexes to keep up with his speed, and excellent tracking to finish off enemies you booped and slammed.

Primary Fire: Quad Cannons

Tips for Quad Cannons

• You can poke a bit to distract the enemy team, farm some Ult charge, but it's not very good ranged damage.
• The main use for your primary fire is to follow up on your rolls and slams. After you get the enemy low, burn through the rest of their health with primary fire and melee.

Secondary Fire: Grappling Claw

Tips for Grappling Claw

• Use Grappling Claw to access high ground, scout safely, and create unpredictable engage angles.
• Do not force attacks early. Remember, you are way faster than anyone else on your team. Avoid feeding by attacking the entire enemy team before your team arrives.
• While dueling, you can grapple anywhere above you and retract to get the height needed for a slam.

[SHIFT]: Roll

Tips for Roll

• Think of Roll as your primary movement tool instead of Grappling Claw. Using Roll to reposition or engage allows you to save Grappling Claw cooldown.
• Avoid long, exposed rotations; always choose the shortest path to cover so you don’t get killed while rolling around.

[Crouch]: Pile Driver

Tips for Piledriver

• Best used after scouting and identifying what heroes the enemy is playing. Don’t Piledriver into heroes like Cassidy or Ana unless you know for a fact they just used their stun.
• Can be performed from ledges. The ground just needs to be far enough below Wrecking Ball to trigger Piledriver after that, he can move back onto higher ground for the actual slam.

[E]: Adaptive Shield

Tips for Adaptive Shield

• The amount of shields generated scales with the number of nearby enemies. Make sure to use them after you are fighting and near enemies, not before you engage.
• If there’s no immediate threat of death, like multiple stuns or you are very low on HP, save shields and rely on movement, Support healing, and cover to survive.
• Always try to force out the enemy's best crowd control abilities without committing Adaptive Shield; that way, you can roll out, then re-engage with shields before they get their cooldowns again.

Ultimate: Minefield

Tips for Minefield

• Go airborne (by rolling from high ground or swinging in), drop Minefield, then Piledriver to launch up enemies, keep them near your Minefield.
• The objective area is the main zone you should be dropping mines on.
• Drop mines behind the enemy frontline to prevent their retreat and separate them from the rest of their team.

Minor Perks

Steamroller

• Not very impactful as an extra 60 damage on Tanks isn’t making a notable difference. Also, Tanks should not be your main target.

Multi-Ball

• Extra area denial and counterplay to escapes. For example, if you try to slam and drop mines on a Moira but they Fade away, chase them, then drop the additional mines to trap them for a kill.
• Even better when you save Grappling Claw for after your Ult. Use high ground to roll in instead of swinging so you can immediately chase.

Major Perks

Hang Time

• Good against squishy heroes with poor mobility like Zenyatta or Hanzo.

Adaptive Barrier

• Very strong as it gives you direct counterplay against crowd control, such as Roadhog Chain Hook and Ana's Sleep Dart.

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