10 Overpowered Characters That DESTROYED Players Online

There's no such thing as a middle ground in the world of competitive gaming. Terrible, good, offensively overpowered: just three descriptors are necessary to summarise where an entire playable roster sits in the metagame. Pick anything other than the last option, and you're knowingly handicapping yourself against an opponent who will always plump for what's best.

In a perfect world that only Thanos could create, all things would be perfectly balanced, but there are no Infinity Stones in this universe (that we know of), and developers, as humans, aren't infallible.

Mistakes happen. Most are simple, harmless oversights, like Johnny Cage being able to perform triple uppercuts in the OG Mortal Kombat. Others are, well, anti-fun at best and overtly busted at worst. Fighting games are always first in mind regarding this sort of debate, likely because their hyper-focus on 1v1 competition makes any overperformer stand out like a sore thumb. There's no shortage of them, either. From Street Fighter III's Gill to more modern examples like Dragon Ball FighterZ's Android 16, every genre fan has an opinion about their dominance.

But it's not a problem unique to brawlers. Overwatch's Bastion, a certain mustachioed Pokémon and even a Bond villain are prime examples of power overwhelming in their respective online environments. Which one do you hate most?

Any high ELO Overwatch player will roll their eyes at Bastion's presence here but he needed to make the cut.

The OG robot from Blizzard's team shooter has traditionally been a solid pick throughout the game's lifecycle. Even though he's not the powerhouse he once was due to power creep, the simple nature of his kit and game plan in every level of play has proven to be both a boon and a detriment over the years. Namely, during the launch months of vanilla Overwatch, Bastion was everywhere thanks to his ability to prey on newbies. Game knowledge is king in hero shooters. If one has yet to learn how to counter a specific character, they will inevitably be dubbed overpowered.

What set him apart from, say, Symmetra, Reinhardt, Hanzo, or any other member of the launch headcount, was his ease of use.

Everyone could play Bastion well; countering was a different story. Mowing down enemies who foolishly thought they could soldier through the hail fire of his alt-turret mode and live to tell the tale was fated to die. Even now, if he has a coordinated team (big if) willing to play to his strengths, the automaton's ability to dominate through zone control is unmatched.