I posted recently asking the community about who has the least amount of total skill expression and it really brought to light that many people do not seem to understand the concept of skill expression. Many answers were 'x hero gets tons of value just spamming chokes" and that’s missing the point entirely. Maybe the question was just poorly worded. Anyway, I wanted to make a post about the concept of skill expression to try and help shed some light on it.

Skill Expression in Overwatch is a way for a player to truly show off and get value from the amount of time and practice with a hero they have. For some heroes this is really easy to see. Doomfist is very obvious the amount of ways you can increase your value through skill, with the various rollouts and techs. However a hero like Junkrat is harder to see their skill expression potential, since he has a low value floor. His skill expression comes from crazy maneuverability through mine jumping and being able to hit mid air shots with his M1. Junkrat is also a perfect example of a hero that is easy to pick up and play but also has enough depth that putting time into all of that with him can be rewarding.

Skill Expression is incredibly important in a game like Overwatch because it gives players reason to put time into a hero and it can be super fun to express that skill. After all, expressing our skill is a big reason people play PVP games in the first place. With new players and veterans, we need an array of heroes with a variety of skill expression styles and levels. It’s important to understand that it is not a hero’s skill floor.

I don’t think this sort of concept is really talked about enough in the community and it is something that probably really should be. Spilo has brought this up in balance conversions about heroes, that we need to add more skill expression to heroes that are lacking. Moira is an example of a hero that could really benefit from getting some more skill expression added to her kit. All she really has is her fade jump tech. While she does require the skill gamesense, all heroes do require gamesense and developing it helps with all heroes/roles. Skill Expression is important for the health of the game and I think it’s a really good/important thing to look at when discussing balance.

What are your thoughts on skill expression? Does it make sense? Should it be a core concept when discussing balance?