With Overwatch Ana Guide, the charming hero shooter from Blizzard, launching this week, we want to make sure that you’re as prepared as possible to help your team dominate. Overwatch’s main focus is clearly on the interplay between its dynamic characters, so in order to become competent, you’ll need to understand how every character works. Throughout the week, we’ll be publishing guides on each of the twenty-one launch heroes, three at a time, with the hopes that you’ll be able to recognize certain patterns on the battlefield.

That's not the only similarity, as Squirrel Girl also has a similar ultimate ability as Junkrat, unleashing a stampede of squirrels at her opponent that eradicates foes, a la Junkrat's Rip Tire ability. Squirrel Girl also has a trap ability in the form of Squirrel Blockade that briefly stuns her f

Imagine my surprise when I was looking through the cast of characters and stumbled upon Symmetra, a support character who has the ability to bend and reshape light into mechanical constructs. While there are a growing number of characters of Indian descent in video games ( The Order: 1886 and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate feature a few), it’s very rare that they are featured as playable characters. I immediately took her for a spin, and after I decided to check out the complete roster of playable characters.

The 21 characters are grouped together in 1 of 4 classes: Offense, Defense, Tank and Support. Though characters may share a class, each plays completely different from one another. For example, Soldier 76 and Tracer are both part of the Offense class, but each has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Soldier 76 players like a traditional Assault character from a Battlefield game. He deals good damage at mid-range and can even drop a healing beacon, but he doesn’t have a lot of health. Tracer, on the other hand, has small clip-sizes and low health but is fast and able to rewind time to pull herself to safety. There aren’t two characters that are similar, and there isn’t a single character that is a perfect "all-around" character. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and learning how to play to those strengths and exploit enemy weaknesses is all part of the game’s meta.

There is a way to get the content you want: Overwatch Gold. Overwatch once again stumbles over itself, though, as Gold isn't earned from playing well or as a microtransaction, but as a random drop from Loot Boxes or burning duplicates. For a game that relies so much on rewarding players for mastering their favorite characters, it doesn’t really give them many ways to unlock the content for the characters they like.

Take Soldier 76, for example. On the surface, he is the most recognizable of the bunch. To be honest, he looks like he was plucked from any semi-futuristic shooter, but his inclusion and design is an important one. Overwatch is a game that awards team and skill-based play, and Soldier 76 serves the important role of acclimating less experienced players into the game. His moveset is simple, with an ultimate ability that essentially allows you to hold down a trigger and rack up kills without aiming, and he also has a healing item, which helps to minimize the importance of avoiding enemy fire. He also has the benefit of handling like a traditional first person shooter, which is bound to resonate with fans of the genre. There’s also Widowmaker, a fan favorite who wields a powerful sniper rifle. While her moveset and weapons require more skill to successfully use, her character design harkens to the femme fatale types that are instantly recognizable, which makes it easier for newcomers to discern what her purpose is within the game.

Torbjörn's first ability, and the one he's most known for, allows him to build a stationary turret on any flat surface large enough to house it. Aside from the fact that this turret will automatically lock onto and fire at any enemies that wander into its range, but it can also be upgraded to a second, more powerful and hitpoint-heavy version through the use of the aforementioned Forge Hammer. Of course, this does require a bit of scrap, which is earned through kills. Not only is scrap used to upgrade Torbjörn's turret, but it also plays into his second ability, Armor pack. For the cost of fifty scrap, Torbjörn can throw down a bit of armor for either himself or his allies, which raises the amount of hitpoints that they can take before dying. Finally, his ultimate ability is known as Molten Core, and this not only significantly raises Torbjörn's health and firing rate, but it also temporarily increases the level of his turret, making it a massive damage-dealer. This lasts for a few seconds, and is a wonderful way to get foes off of an objective once a turret has already been built.

When it comes to characters with a high skill-ceiling, Zenyatta resides near the top of the list. A glass cannon with the ability to heal teammates, a good Zenyatta has the opportunity to completely shift a match in his team's favor, which is certainly a strong case for giving him a shot. Let's get his downsides out of the way right off of the bat: everyone's favorite robotic monk sports a mere 150 hitpoints and doesn't have any movement-based abilities or perks, making him an easy target when in the thick of battle. Still, his main weapon, the Orbs of Destruction, do a great deal of damage for a Support hero, as they can either be fired one-by-one with extreme accuracy, or charged up and fired (with the amount of orbs that are fired based upon how long the secondary fire button is held for). If you're the type of player that is really good at aiming your shots, consider giving Zenyatta a shot, as he is an absolute blast when played proficiently.