Is everything better in 6v6? Only the tanks, and D.Va gains the most at 4.1 points

D.Va wins 4.1 points more of her matches in 6v6 than in 5v5 this season, 50.6% against 46.5%, the biggest gain of any Overwatch hero. When an r/Competitiveoverwatch thread argued in August about whether D.Mon is better in 6v6, the top reply (256 points) was "6v6 players say everything is better in 6v6". It isn't everything. Every hero who gains is a tank.

The biggest limit is who plays each mode. In these matches 6v6 sits higher on the ladder, with Emerald and Diamond at 45% of its play against 23% in 5v5, so part of any gap can be the crowd rather than the mode.

Every figure is the same hero over the same weeks (Oct 12 to Nov 8), Ranked and Unranked together, all ranks. Pick share is the share of a team's playing time on that hero.

Part of this belongs to the role. 6v6 teams field 1.85 tanks on average, and tanks as a whole won 51.1% in 6v6 against 50.4% in 5v5. Take that 0.7 out and D.Va still gains 3.4 points, Roadhog 1.8.

Roadhog is the hero players already name ("the only tank that goes from mid tier to broken in that mode is Hog", 65 points, same thread). He was buffed on October 13; counting only the weeks after, he gains 2.2. His rework is covered in the Sombra and Roadhog article. The November 5 hotfix changed Wrecking Ball and D.Mon; before it they gained 3.3 and 2.7. Mauga is next at +1.7, but the rule names five at most.

Domina reads backwards. She is a tank, and tanks gain 0.7 in 6v6, so she sits 2.4 points under her own role. She is picked almost twice as often there, so this is no handful of one-tricks, and Ranked alone gives the same drop (2.0 points over 6,049 matches). These tables can't show why.

Damage as a whole won 49.9% in 6v6 against 50.4% in 5v5. Widowmaker's drop is mostly Unranked; in Ranked it is 0.7.

The two modes don't draw the same players. 6v6 leans to the upper middle of the ladder: Emerald is 27.3% of its play and Diamond 17.5%, against 16.9% and 6.1% in 5v5, while Gold and Silver are most of 5v5. The 6v6 rank is the open-queue rank and the 5v5 one a role rank, so even the same badge is not quite the same player.

That is why the gains above are checked at one rank. In Platinum, the largest rank in both modes, D.Va and Roadhog clear the floor on their own and gain 2.8 and 2.6 points; the other named heroes have too few Platinum matches to name, and all point the same way.