Anne's boosted animal hero pick guide S4 edition:
Stuck in elo hell during this competitive season? Bad teammates got you down? Don't know which hero will help carry you to the stars? Let me help with that. These heroes are guaranteed to grant you 3k+ elo no problem. If you're favorite hero isn't on this list that doesn't mean they are too bad to pick. Probably. Sorry Reaper players.
Freelo tier:
Mercy: Rez buffs are hella real. This characters ability to survive and get off a high value rez is making or breaking tons of ranked games right now. So much so it's not uncommon to hear "we can't counter Mercy without our own Mercy" from my own teammates as they fail to get real value and maintain our own ult economy :^). Figure out who the best DPS player on your team is and live basically inside of them for minutes at a time until they die. Then just yell "die on point" and get that big value rez. (ask Antitrop how to actually play this character they know what's up)
Pharah: If Mercy is good, Pharah is probably also mad good. Ana is nerfed, more people are running dive heroes than hitscan, and you have a monkey buddy to help get in wherever you want. Seriously, you don't need to be named Mangachu or Valkia to make this hero work. If you can land rockets and just space decently, this character puts in crazy work. There are tons of team comps (read: dive) that are popular right now with no Pharah countermeasures on them, so don't be afraid to just go nuts.
Winston: Shield buff means that once you go in you can basically stay in forever now. If a DPS player on the enemy team has more mechanical skill than your entire team combined, don't worry. Pick up your gorilla friend and cause flashbacks to S3 D.Va all over again. Pair with a remotely competent Genji, Tracer, or Pharah just to be extra sure the enemy carry is removed from the game.
Season 3 Favorites:
Soldier: It's Soldier. He hurts. Pick him.
Reinhardt: Big square don't care. He's less good than last season because of all the flying monkeys, but he's still 1000x better than Orisa ever will be.
Zarya: Goes great with monkeys! Saves teammates from monkeys! That's enough to pick her nearly all the time still.
Tracer and Genji: These characters were already arguably better than Soldier in some situations, but with Winston being everywhere they just definitely are a good chunk of the time. Name a random character in team chat and be amazed as they disappear right before your eyes while never having swift strike on CD again. Tracer is a better tank buster than Reaper.
Lucio: #NerfLucio
Ana: #NerfAnaAgain
The "People thinking niche picks are dead" tier:
D.Va: lowkey broken again. DM buff is insane and she can negate several new things that she couldn't before. Big ones include Zarya, Roadhog, and even Genji. She's also very good with mobile dive comps because she has the best mobility in the game that nobody uses enough. She also murders Pharah. That last one is honestly enough to justify her existence right now.
McCree: People keep saying that McCree is murdered by dive. People also keep having very bad management of their flashbang cooldown. People keep standing in bad spots. With everything and their mom trying to jump on Mercy, flashbang is the god and M1 still "randomly" decides fights.
Widowmaker: Kills Pharah.
Zen: Dive is good, Pharah is good, thus Zen is good.
Addendum: Roadhog is still good at killing divers yeah pick him on defense.
In the holy words of caeser the former eu GAF OW lord:
Play Pharmercy and watch the enemy team implode as they blame their solo McCree for not killing both of them by hitting 30 consecutive 20 dmg long range shots.
