Generally, being on fire isn’t recommended. In Overwatch, though, it’s a badge of honour – a sign that you’re doing well. You’re the most fire player in the goddamn match, you proudly think to yourself as your flesh slowly melts away and the bacon-y smell makes you hungry.
For more from the world of online gaming, check out our feature on the best multiplayer games.
Overwatch’s ‘on fire’ system doesn’t really do a great job of explaining itself, but basically it’s a way of highlighting players who are doing particularly well – not only for boasting rights, but to also mark you for the other team as a priority target.
Its main function is to give your team a chance against a player who’s dominating, allowing you to deploy an efficient counter. So like in real life, being on fire isn’t always that great.
With that in mind, redditor Medikasohas put together a helpful guide that breaks down the system, laying out exactly which actions cause the fire bar to fill up.
The fire bar can fill up infinitely, but it’ll only ever show 350 points as the maximum. You’re actually classed as ‘on fire’ when it hits 250 points, and the bar constantly degrades by five points per second, so you’ll need to be pretty active if you want to stay alight.
Here are the actions you can take to get the bar filling up:
- Payload escort = 10 fire per second
- Payload checkpoint = 55 fire
- Capture point capturing = 180 fire in total
- Capture point checkpoint = 55
- Control point capturing = 100 total
- Control point checkpoint = 10
- All heroes gain fire based on % damage done in relation to their max health for an elimination (50% of enemy max health dealt = 50 fire)
- Bastion healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- D. Va using defense matrix = 1 fire per 25 damage blocked
- Hanzo recon assist = 40 fire per assist
- Lucio healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Mei blocking with wall = 1 fire per 25 damage blocked
- Mei healing in ice block = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Mercy healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Mercy resurrecting = 50 fire per resurrect
- Mercy damage boost = 1 fire per assist (but if she damages for 99% then gets the final 1% killing blow she will gain 100 fire)
- Reaper healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Reinhardt blocking with shield = 1 fire per 25 damage blocked
- Roadhog healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Soldier: 76 healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Symmetra shields = 25 fire per shield
- Symmetra teleporter = 25 fire per teleport
- Torbjorn using armor pack = 25 fire per armor pack picked up by allies
- Torbjorn healing turret = 1 fire per 5 turret hp healed
- Widowmaker recon assist = 40 fire per assist
- Winston blocking with shield = 1 fire per 25 damage blocked
- Zarya blocking with shield = 1 fire per 25 damage blocked
- Zenyatta healing = 1 fire per 5 hp healed
- Zenyatta discord orb = 1 fire per assist
- Destroying D. Va’s mech = 100 fire
- Destroying Junkrat’s concussion mine = 1 fire
- Destroying Junkrat’s steel trap = 1 fire
- Destroying Junkrat’s RIP-tire = 50 fire
- Destroying Symmetra’s sentry turret = 25 fire
- Destroying Symmetra’s teleporter = 100 fire
- Destroying Torbjorn’s turret = Lvl 1 is 50 fire / Lvl 2 is 75 fire / Lvl 3 (Ult) is 100 fire
- Destroying Widowmaker’s venom mine = 25 fire
Medikaso also does YouTube guide videos for Overwatch, so check out their first at that there link.