Practice vs. AI is one of the play modes in Overwatch 2, available in the Training playlist. In it, two teams of five—one human, one AI-controlled—contend with each other.
Description[ | ]
Hone your skill by playing against AI-controlled heroes.
Practice vs. AI plays nearly identically to Unranked Open Queue, only with bots as opponents instead of humans. There is no role lock or Tank health bonus in place, meaning players are free to choose any hero that hasn't already been picked. The AI, however, is restricted to a standard Role Queue composition of 1 Tank hero, 2 Damage heroes, and 2 Support heroes, though the AI team doesn't benefit from the Tank health bonus either.
The mode is played as 5v5 on a randomly selected map from one of the five standard game modes:
Difficulty Levels[ | ]
Before searching for a match, the player is prompted to select a difficulty. Higher difficulties improve the bots' damage output, weapon accuracy, ability usage, and movement frequency. Practice vs. AI has three selectable difficulty levels; these are, from easiest to hardest:
AI-Controlled Heroes[ | ]
The following is a comprehensive list of heroes which can or cannot be encountered on the AI team, indicated by either a check mark (✔️) or a cross (❌), respectively.
Hero | AI |
---|---|
TANK | |
D.Va | ❌ |
Doomfist | ✔️ |
Junker Queen | ✔️ |
Mauga | ✔️ |
Orisa | ✔️ |
Ramattra | ✔️ |
Reinhardt | ✔️ |
Roadhog | ❌ |
Sigma | ✔️ |
Winston | ✔️ |
Wrecking Ball | ❌ |
Zarya | ✔️ |
DAMAGE | |
Ashe | ✔️ |
Bastion | ✔️ |
Cassidy | ✔️ |
Echo | ❌ |
Genji | ✔️ |
Hanzo | ✔️ |
Junkrat | ✔️ |
Mei | ✔️ |
Pharah | ❌ |
Reaper | ✔️ |
Sojourn | ✔️ |
Soldier: 76 | ✔️ |
Sombra | ✔️ |
Symmetra | ✔️ |
Torbjörn | ✔️ |
Tracer | ✔️ |
Widowmaker | ✔️ |
SUPPORT | |
Ana | ✔️ |
Baptiste | ✔️ |
Brigitte | ✔️ |
Illari | ❌ |
Kiriko | ✔️ |
Lifeweaver | ❌ |
Lúcio | ✔️ |
Mercy | ✔️ |
Moira | ✔️ |
Zenyatta | ✔️ |
Bugs[ | ]
The AI has a litany of self-handicapping bugs, which can potentially put it at a severe disadvantage. Curiously, many of them only affect the bots when Recommended Role AI is active (meaning they are allowed to switch heroes), as is the case with Practice vs. AI; these are marked with an asterisk.
*
When switching heroes too often, it can occur that a bot retains the AI of the previous hero it played or that it only stares upward. This is most prevalent on Control maps due to forced switching at the beginning of a new round when being defeated.*
Bots can have up to two pairs of the same hero in the Damage and Support categories, respectively.*
Doomfist never fully charges Rocket Punch.*
Sigma oftentimes does not use his Hyperspheres, and Accretion never at all.*
Zarya never uses Graviton Surge.*
Sombra never uses Virus.- Bots are sometimes unresponsive to the presence of enemies, notably when retreating or proceeding to the objective.
- Genji and Tracer are prone to falling off the map due to their movement abilities.
- Kiriko will attempt to teleport to an ally with Swift Step when sustaining a certain amount of damage. This causes a problem when she is the sole survivor of her team; she will defend herself until she gets injured enough, and while not within teleporting range, she will remain locked on to her closest ally and be unresponsive to enemies until she is either able to teleport to them or killed.
- The AI has faulty pathfinding on all of Samoa's maps, more often than not causing the bots to roam inside the spawn room for a large portion of a round; if the bots do manage to leave the spawn area, it will mostly be individually, making them easy pickings for human players.
Trivia[ | ]
- Bots automatically break any destructibles they come into contact with, most likely to prevent them from getting stuck.
- Bots cannot be displaced by human players when walking into them.
- Bots cannot crouch.
- Bots cannot be On Fire, not even by "stealing" the status from human players after eliminating them.
- Bots cannot earn Play of the Game.
- Bots only jump to navigate the terrain, never in combat. The only exception is Hanzo, who will do so in order to execute his Lunge when he sustains enough damage.
- Bots will immediately attempt to find cover when a zoning Ultimate such as Cassidy's Deadeye is activated by an enemy.
- Bots ignore enemies stunned by Sleep Dart until they wake up.
- Bots focus their attention on enemy Support heroes more than those of other roles.
- Bots can still track enemies that have left their line of sight for up to several seconds.
- Bots wave hello to each other in the spawn room during the setup phase.
- Bots will attempt to destroy the motorcycle in the Junkertown attacker spawn.
- Bots may retreat to the spawn room if they are outnumbered and wait for all their allies to respawn before resuming the attack.
- The Tank bot acts as the vanguard during the march to the objective; Damage and Support bots are programmed to stay behind it until they arrive there.
- Certain bots do not have access to their full kits; the abilities of each hero that cannot be used are as follows:
- Baptiste: Exo Boots
- Genji: Cyber-Agility
- Hanzo: Wall Climb
- Kiriko: Wall Climb (Kiriko)
- Lúcio: Wall Ride
- Mercy: Angelic Descent
- Reaper: Shadow Step
- Symmetra: Teleporter
- Widowmaker: Grappling Hook
- Zenyatta: Orb of Destruction Alt Fire
- Doomfist, Mauga, Reinhardt, and Brigitte will attempt to cancel out a Rocket Punch, Overrun, Charge, or Shield Bash of the opposing team with their own.
- Reinhardt may occasionally taunt pinned enemies by greeting them.
- Tracer will attempt to dodge crowd control abilities with Blink.
- She may also execute a Blink and Quick Melee combo, especially to finish off low-health enemies.
- Roadhog is the very first AI hero to have been removed from the game following his November 2023 rework.
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