hard counter

English

Alternative forms

• (verb) hard-counter

Noun

hard counter (plural hard counters)

1. (video games, slang) A character, item, or playstyle able to utterly defeat or nullify another.
   • 2017 January 30, Michael McWhertor, “Overwatch's Bastion is finally getting some much-needed buffs”, in Polygon‎^[1], archived from the original on 2023-02-05:

     "Bastion is currently in a pretty bad spot," Rarithlynx wrote earlier this month. "He has the most counters out of all heroes in the game, including quite a bit of hard counters. He's big and immobile, and has no defensive or escape abilities, and requires the team to babysit him all the time."

   • 2022 September 15, Kris Holt, “Here's Why New 'Overwatch 2' Heroes Are Locked Behind A Battle Pass”, in Forbes‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: Forbes Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-21:

     In a blog post, the Overwatch team said it wanted to enable players to have more impact on games with a broad range of strategies and heroes. "We've made changes to reduce the amount of hard counters that Overwatch has," game director Aaron Keller said in an interview.

   • 2023 February 18, Jake Tucker, “New operator Brava is going to shake up 'Rainbow Six Siege'ʼs meta”, in NME‎^[3], London: NME Networks Media Limited, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 June 2023:

     The depth of the game's 66 other operators means that there are already some hard counters and interesting interactions.

Verb

hard counter (third-person singular simple present hard counters, present participle hard countering, simple past and past participle hard countered)

1. (video games, slang) To act as a hard counter against (something).
   • 2021 December 8, Charlie Biggerstaff, “Best Marshal loadout in Warzone, plus how to unlock the Marshal in Warzone”, in Rock Paper Shotgun‎^[4], archived from the original on 2023-02-06:

     Unfortunately, Dragon's Breath is not a good option right now. It trades some initial damage for the burning effect, but that burn is hard-countered by EOD.

   • 2022 August 26, Matt Purslow, “Homeworld 3's Space Terrain Makes the Death Star Trench Run an RTS Tactic”, in IGN‎^[5], archived from the original on 26 June 2023:

     For instance, while those enemy rocket ships are hard countered by bombers, I was also abble to destroy them with a group of Interceptors who were able to flank while the missiles targeted Recon units that were hidden in cover.

2. (video games, slang) To use a hard counter against (something).
   • 2021 April 3, Spencer Whitworth, “How to beat Cliff in Pokemon GO (April 2023)”, in Sportskeeda‎^[6], archived from the original on 2023-06-27:

     Since this is the case, you will want to be aware of all of the potential options Cliff has at his disposal so you can counter them accordingly. Unfortunately, you won't know which opponents you'll battle for certain until they appear, so hard-countering Cliff's entire potential team can be tricky.

   • 2022 November 3, Matthew McKeown, “Hell Is Others: Guide To PvP”, in The Gamer‎^[7], archived from the original on 2022-11-04:

     They're relatively easy to get once you unlock the Gun Shop Vendor, and there are not many options to hard counter their suppressive fire other than running away.