What can heroes be commended for?
In the commendation screen, after a match, you can see a few players who were picked out because of something "big" that they contributed to the team. For example, you'll see commendations like:
- McCree: x Fan The Hammer kills
- Reinhardt: x damage blocked
- Mercy: x healing done
- Pharah: x rocket direct hits
- etc.
What I'm curious about is what kind of commendations are there for heroes? Everytime I see a Reinhardt commendation window, it only ever says "x damage blocked", and I have never seen something like "Eliminations done" or "Damage Dealt", despite these categories being something you'd see without fail on S76 and Reaper commendations.
So do heroes have access to all possible statistics to be commended for? Meaning, say using Soldier 76, then he could possibly have a commendation for:
- Damage done
- Medals awarded
- Eliminations
- Rocket Direct Hits
- Healing done
Or are heroes only specifically limited to certain commendations? Would it ever be possible to see Mercy being commended for "most damage done" if Mercy had actually dealt most damage compared to every other hero, or would the commendations be restricted to "healing done, assists, revives, etc."
Best Answer
Without any official data published anywhere that I can see, I can only speculate on my answer, using personal experience from both the closed and open beta, as well as many games played the last two days.
Essentially, from what I can tell, it seems that every character has the opportunity to get a few "core" commendations that are common among all of them. These likely include Eliminations, Solo Kills (questionable, see below), MVP, and Damage Done. I'm not sure if anyone has played every hero enough to confirm that any of the general commendations are impossible to achieve on a particular character, but just harder to do so among a group of 12 players (Solo Kills on Lucio for example. Not to imply that Lucio is difficult to get kills with).
Additionally, for each character, it seems there are commendations for each of their unique mechanics, include their Ultimate. Enemies Frozen for Mei, or Rocket Direct Hits for Pharah, for example.
Lastly, there are a few commendations that are limited to a character's ability to perform them. Characters that cannot move other characters should not get Environmental Kills, just as characters that cannot produce a barrier cannot get Damage Blocked. (Note that Zarya's ability to produce a Barrier would likely result in her getting a commendation for Projected Shield uses rather than the more general Damage Blocked). In a similar vein to these abilities are those that are limited to a character's role. I am unsure if Solo Kills falls into this category for Offense heroes, and right now that limits Damage Blocked to Tank heroes (unless I am forgetting someone).
Again, this is based on my experience, and I cannot find any definite rulings. Such data would be hard to find this early into the game without definite word from Blizzard.
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