Overwatch Genji Dragonblade Guide

Overwatch Genji Dragonblade Guide by deep40000

In the time I’ve spent with the game I’ve learned that my absolute favorite hero is Genji, he has an extremely high skill cap, and his Dragonblade ultimate can absolutely destroy a team if used properly, however far too often I see Genji players very inneficiently use his ultimate, resulting in them only getting 1 kill or none on average. So, let’s start!

FAIRLY OBVIOUS THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

If you’ve played even a little bit of Genji, or against Genji you should know how he needs to prioritize his targets when in Dragonblade form. First the supports, then the rest of the squishies and finally the tanks. However this isn’t necessarily always the case. For example, if you know that their supports have already used their ultimates and are not close to getting it, it would be a better idea to go after the DPS heroes since they are the ones that can kill you. Also, look for opportunities on low HP heroes to swift strike into them and get an elim, then swift strike to someone else to make yourself harder to hit. You want to minimize your chances of dying during Dragonblade and this can mean killing the DPS first unless their supports have ultimate up which will make them a bigger threat since they can deny your swift strike reset. Make sure also to ask for Zarya to shield you if you have one on your team before hand, and Zenyatta to orb you for the HP regen. This will give you no chance to be contested during the first second of your dragonblade since Zarya shield makes you unflashable, or hookable, and if they shoot at it, it will give your Zarya charge(a lot of times full since most everyone will want to immediately shoot at the ulting Genji…).

SWIFT STRIKE AND YOU

This ability is absolutely incredible, and quite often is fairly undervalued. It’s cooldown is instantly refreshed when you get an elimination, so you can and SHOULD use this ability off cooldown when using Dragonblade. When going in with Dragonblade, if the enemy team is unaware of your presence, or there is just an extremely chaotic clustered fight going on, you can use this to your advantage, and swift strike through the entire team and cast ultimate behind them. If they are fighting your team from the front, they will need to turn around to deal with you, and in the time it takes for their team to turn around to deal with you, your team has tons of advantage at this point to take advantage of your distraction even if you die.

Something else to take note of, is that if they have a Zenyatta on their team that has died, and there is still a Lucio left in their team, if there is another chaotic team fight even if Lucio has ultimate ready, you can swift strike into the Lucio, and cast ultimate, then slash + swift strike again since using ultimate refreshes your swift strike. This deals 220 damage, which if the Lucio does not amp up heal or is getting healed by something else, he will die even if he tries to cast his ultimate since it takes time to drop the beat unless they have absolutely insane foresight or reaction time. Here’s an example of this happening

Use this ability off cooldown, SERIOUSLY, it’s nuts. It makes you hard to see and hit, and it deals damage and resets on elimination and can be cancelled into from deflect or dragonblade swing, deals large crowd damage and if you get an elim from just one, can combo into another, into another…etc.

HOW DO I DEAL WITH MY COUNTERS WHILE IN DRAGONBLADE?

Well we already covered Lucio, so your other main counters to your Dragonblade are McCree, Zenyatta, Roadhog, and Rein. There are also those that are very annoying to deal with during Dragonblade, Torbjorn comes to mind and can mitigate your effectiveness because of his constant DPS auto aim turret. While Torbjorn isn’t all too popular because his gun can be easily killed by a coordinated team, he can still easily kill you with his turret making it a pain to kill your wanted target. On top of this, he has an ultimate which can extremely quickly kill you if used on a lvl 2 turret, so you will need to coordinate with your team to kill the turret before using your dragonblade, or using your dragonblade in an area where their team is that the turret has no sightline to.

DEALING WITH REIN:

The best way to deal with Rein, is to stay at absolute max range from Rein at all times, and at the very tip of your Dragonblade range. Rein can cover a 360 degree area around him at all times, so it’d be good to imagine Rein having an invisible circle around him at all times that you need to stay out of(unless he is lowish HP of course). Another important thing to remember is that your deflect can block Rein’s melee attacks, it will still push you away, but if you are in a situation where you are unable to easily get away from their team, deflecting and taking the pushback while moving away from them and surfing the momentum can get you out of quite a few bad situations. Rein also has his pin of course, but if you are in the air when using your Dragonblade, it should not be effective on you, make sure to stay in the air when fighting a Rein unless you have a target that you know you can secure a kill on with the blade, then of course abuse your deflect if you really need to protect yourself and aim it at rein’s head.

DEALING WITH MCCREE:

McCree is something else, there is no easy way to deal with him especially is he is properly protected and he has good aim. Bad McCree’s are easy to deal with, but good McCrees can be difficult. The best way to deal with him is to wait for his attention to turn to you, and stay away from his flashbang range.

There are 2 ranges you need to be at when against him, it’s either at point blank range, or right outside his flashbang range. If you’re at point blank range you can always land a deflected flash bang no matter where he throws it and your rclick shurikens are most effective, not to mention you can easily jump over his head and stand on it or circle strafe around him. If you’re right outside of his flashbang range, then you can bait the flashbang and deflect his shots back into his face which can kill him if you can swift strike into him then kill him with Dragonblade. NEVER stay in his flashbang range unless it’s point blank. If you do this, you risk getting your deflect baited out and you being stuck in a very precarious situation.

DEALING WITH ZENYATTA:

You need to force his ultimate BEFORE Dragonblade or call for your team to focus him to force his ult. His ultimate is a near instant cast, so he can very easily react to your Dragonblade call out and start his ultimate. Don’t use your Dragonblade while his Transcendence is out unless it’s right near the end. Either kill him or force him to use it before blade, or you will waste it, period. You can do this by staying right outside his swift strike range and abusing high ground. If he ever drops below 50 HP, you swift strike into him, then swift strike back to your previous position or a safe position immediately. Deflect can make you a near invincible target high ground(unless someone flanks or jumps you) since nobody will want to shoot you in fear of killing their Zen. His DPS is very high and every time you dragonblade he will discord you. Don’t be afraid to use your deflect on a Zenyatta if he’s shooting you. One or two well placed orb headshots can mean the end for you or him.

DEALING WITH ROADHOG:

Everyone’s favorite hero. The best Roadhog, is a dead Roadhog, but a lot of times that is just not possible. A good Roadhog will always land his hook on you, so you need to plan your attack with that in mind.

His hook however, does come out slow enough that you can actually deflect it ON REACTION. So just make sure if you ever do go in to watch out for Roadhog hook to deflect it immediately, or, and this is the best solution, to either cast your Dragonblade outside, or wait for him to burn his hook on you then find a way in and cast Dragonblade leaving you unhookable for the next 3 seconds since it will be on CD.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

The biggest element however, when it comes to getting decent Dragonblades out is practice. Practice and efficiency, you cannot afford to waste not one ability, and cannot misstep or miscommunicate with your team. The most powerful way to use Dragonblade is to use it in conjuction with your team, and to flank their team and catch them unaware. I think that’s about it, if you have any more questions, or tips, or suggestions to the guide let me know and I can add them in.