Overwatch Health Types & Hitpoint Basics
( FP's Overwatch Strategy Guide )

This guide will cover all the hitpoint types in Overwatch along with a hero hitpoint chart and how to get healed within the world of Overwatch.

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Overwatch Health Types

Normal HP

All heroes have at least some amount of normal health hitpoints (HP) and it appears on your health meter as plain white.  Normal health takes full damage from all attacks.  Each block on the health meter represents a total of 25 HP (whether it is normal health, shield, or armor).

Armor HP

Armor is represented on your health meter as yellow.  Armor will always appear after your normal health and can be healed up via health packs or through allies healing you.  The exception to this is when Torbjorn gives you an armor pack.  Armor packs give +75 armor, but cannot be healed up unless a new armor pack is picked up.

What armor does is basically reduce damage done to you.  Armor will reduce most attacks in the game by 5 points.  For example, if you get hit by one of Pharah's rockets, instead of taking the full 120 damage, you will take 115 damage instead.  For attacks that do less than 10 damage, it will only apply a 50% damage decreasement.  So if an attack does 5 damage, armor will only reduce it by 2.5 points.  Where armor becomes more efficient is when it reduces rapid fire low damage attacks, such as Tracer's Pulse Pistols, as normally it would do no more than 6 damage for each bullet, but against armor each bullet would only do 3 damage, which is a huge reduction (50%) compared to Pharah's rockets (4.2%).

Heroes that have innate armor built into their health:

• Bastion - has 100 armor (out of his 300 health pool).
• Torbjorn's Molten Core ultimate - gains +300 armor for the duration of the ultimate (500 total health during Molten Core).
• D.va - D.va's mech has 400 armor (out of her 600 health pool).
• Winston - has 100 armor (out of his 500 health pool).

Heroes can also gain a +75 armor pack from Torbjorn, and they appear on the map like this:

Health pack from Torbjorn:

Like I said above, armor obtained from Torbjorn's armor packs cannot be healed up and will be lost, unless another armor pack is picked back up to replenish the armor again.  Also armor obtained from Torbjorn's armor packs will appear as orange on your health meter (instead of yellow like other armor).

Armor Reduction Chart:

NOTE:  I have tested all these values myself and I would say they are very accurate.  I list how much overall damage is blocked by armor (non head shots) from attack weapons and abilities, ranked from most to least.  For weapons that do fall-off distance damage I have three values for them, first is the average damage and I also include close range and long range damage reduction, check it out:

1. 50.0% Reduction = Tracer's Pulse Pistols
2. 50.0% Reduction = Mei's Frost Stream
3. 50.0% Reduction = Reaper's Shotguns
4. 50.0% Reduction = D.va's Fusion Cannons
5. 50.0% Reduction = Mei's Frost Stream
6. 50.0% Reduction = Widowmaker's Venom Mine
7. 50.0% Reduction = Roadhog's Scrap Gun
8. 50.0% Reduction = Winston's Tesla Cannon
9. 50.0% Reduction = Symmetra's Sentry Turret
10. [AVG 41.65%] - 33.3% - 50.0% Reduction = Bastion in Sentry Mode
11. [AVG 41.65%] - 33.3% - 50.0% Reduction = Torbjorn's Rivet Gun alternate fire
12. [AVG 39.7%] - 29.4% - 50.0% Reduction = Soldier 76's Tactical Visor
13. [AVG 39.7%] - 29.4% - 50.0% Reduction = Soldier 76's Pulse Rifle
14. [AVG 37.5%] - 25.0% - 50.0% Reduction = Bastion in Recon Mode
15. 38.5% Reduction = Widowmaker's Assault rifle automatic mode
16. 35.5% Reduction = D.va's Light Blaster Gun in human form
17. 31.2% Reduction = Lucio's Sonic Projectiles
18. 27.9% Reduction = Zarya's Short Range Beam (0% charged)
19. 25.0% Reduction = Mercy's Caduceus Blaster
20. 22.2% Reduction = Symmetra's Projector Beam
21. 20.0% Reduction = Symmetra's Photon Orb (non charged shot)
22. 20.0% Reduction = McCree's Flashbang
23. 20.0% Reduction = Lucio's Soundwave (knockback ability)
24. 18.5% Reduction = Hanzo's Storm Bow (non charged shot)
25. 17.9% Reduction = Genji's shurikens
26. 14.9% Reduction = Zarya's Short Range Beam (100% charged)
27. [AVG 14.7%] - 6.7% - 22.7% Reduction = Mei's Icicle Projectiles
28. 14.3% Reduction = Zenyatta's charged volley orbs
29. 12.5% Reduction = Winston's Primal Rage hit
30. 11.1% Reduction = Zenyatta's energy orbs
31. 11.1% Reduction = Zarya's Explosive Charges
32. [AVG 10.7%] - 7.1% - 14.3% Reduction = McCree's Peacekeeper shot
33. 10.0% Reduction = Genji's Swift Strike
34. 10.0% Reduction = Reinhardt's Earthshatter
35. 8.7% Reduction = Zarya's Explosive Charge Alt Fire (0% charged)
36. 8.3% Reduction = Ana's Biotic Grenade
37. 7.1% Reduction = McCree's Peacekeeper Fan Fire
38. 7.1% Reduction = Torbjorn's Rivet Gun normal fire
39. 6.7% Reduction = Reinhardt's Rocket Hammer swing
40. 6.3% Reduction = Junkrat's Steel Trap
41. 5.3% Reduction = Zarya's Explosive Charge Alt Fire (100% charged)
42. 5.0% Reduction = Reinhardt's Fire Strike
43. 4.2% Reduction = Junkrat's Frag Launcher (direct hit)
44. 4.2% Reduction = Junkrat's Concussive Mine (direct hit)
45. 4.2% Reduction = Pharah's rockets (direct hit)
46. 4.2% Reduction = Soldier 76's Helix Rocket (direct hit)
47. 4.2% Reduction = Genji's Dragonblade (ultimate)
48. 4.0% Reduction = Hanzo's Storm Bow (fully charged shot)
49. 4.0% Reduction = Symmetra's Photon Orb (fully charged shot)
50. 3.5% Reduction = Widowmaker's Sniper rifle (fully charged shot)
51. 1.7% Reduction = Reinhardt's Charge/Pin

Shield HP

Shields will appear on your health bar as a light blue color.  Shields will take priority over other types of hitpoints and will always appear on the right side of your health bar.  Shields do not offer damage reduction like armor does but instead regenerates its hitpoints at 25 HP per second after 3 seconds of not taking damage.  Shields function similar to the Protoss shields in Starcraft.

Shields offer great protection from intermittent burst damage and some heroes will take advantage of shields more so than other heroes, mainly offensive flankers such as Tracer, Reaper, and Genji.

These heroes have innate shields:

• Zarya - 200 shield (out of her 400 health pool)
• Symmetra - 100 shield (out of her 200 health pool)
• Zenyatta - 100 shield (out of his 150 health pool)

Symmetra Shields
Symmetra has a unique ability called Photon Shield that allows her to throw a +25 HP shield on her allies.  She can easily give this to all of her allies.  Overall I consider this ability to be more powerful than Torbjorn's armor packs because of how armor packs cost scrap and will dissipate once the armor HP is used up.

Overheal

Currently the only ability in the game that provides an "overheal" is Lucio's Sound Barrier ultimate.  Sound Barrier gives Lucio and all his allies around him a +500 HP shield that degrades overtime at -100 HP per second until it totally dissolves away.  The temporarily shield shows up on the right side of your health bar as dark blue and will take priority over all other hitpoint types for its duration.

Hero Hitpoint Chart

Chart is ranked by highest total HP at the top:

Hero	Total HP	Normal HP	Armor HP	Shield HP
Winston (Primal Rage)	1000	900	100
D.Va	600	200	400
Roadhog	600	600
Torbjorn (Molten Core)	500	200	300
Reinhardt	500	250	250
Winston	500	400	100
Bastion (Config: Tank)	450	200	250
Zarya	400	200		200
Bastion	300	200	100
Mei	250	250
Reaper	250	250
Zenyatta	200	50		150
Symmetra	200	100		100
Ana	200	200
Genji	200	200
Hanzo	200	200
Junkrat	200	200
Lucio	200	200
McCree	200	200
Mercy	200	200
Pharah	200	200
Soldier 76	200	200
Torbjorn	200	200
Widowmaker	200	200
Tracer	150	150
D.va (human form)	150	150

How to get healed in Overwatch

There are various ways to heal HP up in Overwatch.  Every method will heal up any type of health, whether it be regular HP, armor HP, or shield HP, it fills them all up.

Spawn locations heal +250 HP per second

Health Packs
Overwatch consists of two different health packs:

• Small health packs give +75 HP, and have a 10 second respawn timer.
• Large health packs give +250 HP, and have a 15 second respawn timer.

It is very important to memorize where all the health packs are at in all the maps.  When it comes to memorizing the maps, health pack placements are up there at the most important things to remember.

These heroes have capabilities to reach health packs very quickly to restore their health:

• D.va's Boosters
• Genji's Swift Strike
• Junkrat's Mine jumps
• Lucio's speed aura combined with an Amp It Up
• Soldier 76's Sprint
• Tracer's Blink
• Reaper's Shadow Step
• Widowmaker's Grappling Hook
• Winston's Leap
• Pharah's Jet Packs

By default, only support heroes can see allied health meters
By default, all support heroes such as Ana, Mercy, Zenyatta, Symmetra and Lucio are the only heroes that have allied health meters on by default.  The rest of the heroes are turned off by default.  In the Control settings you can turn allied health bars on globally for all heroes or for individual heroes.  Besides the support heroes, I recommend turning on allied health bars for at least Zarya and Soldier 76.  This will allow Soldier 76 to see whether or not to drop down a Biotic Field to heal an ally and will let Zarya have more informed decisions on who to give a Projected Barrier to.

Ally healing abilities in Overwatch:

• Mercy's Caduceus Staff:  60hp per second (only one ally at a time).
• Soldier 76's Biotic Field:  35hp per second (for all allies standing in the field).  NOTE:  You must keep line of sight with the center of the Biotic Field in order to receive its healing.
• Lucio's Crossfade Healing Aura:  15.6 hp per second (for all allies within 10 meters of Lucio's line of sight).  NOTE:  Lucio's Amp It Up ability increases healing to 51 hp per second for 3 seconds (once every 12 seconds).
• Zenyatta's Harmony Orb:  30hp per second (only one ally at a time).  NOTE:  You must keep line of sight with Zenyatta in order to maintain the orb.
• Zenyatta's Ultimate Transcendence:  300hp per second (for all allies around him along with line of sight).
• Ana's Biotic Rifle:  Ana can shoot allies with her Rifle to heal them for 80hp.  She can fire one round every 0.8 second.
• Ana's Biotic Grenade:  Heals 100hp for all allies within the vicinity of the blast radius (including Ana herself).  Please note that Biotic Grenades will double all healing for allies and prevent enemies from getting healed for the duration of the Biotic Grenade.

Individual hero healing abilities:

• Mei's Cryp-Freeze heals up to +150 HP.
• Roadhog's Take a Breather heals +300 (half of his HP).
• Reaper can collect Soul Globes after he makes a kill that restores +50 HP.
• Tracer can use her Recall ability to restore her health to what it was a few seconds ago.
• Bastion has a Self-Heal of 25% of his total health per second.
• Mercy has a slow self heal after 1 seconds of not taking damage.

Payloads heal you too!
It's important to know that if you are on attack and you are escorting a payload, just being around it will heal you at a rate of 10 HP per second.

 

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