Overwatch Carrying As Support Guide

Overwatch Carrying As Support Guide by kiserlodski

I am a support only player, currently around 3400 and I mainly play Lucio and Mercy. Here’s a link to my career profile: http://imgur.com/a/2P2MW

General things about Supporting:

1. Carry potential:

You can make decent teams good and good teams better but you can’t make bad teams decent. Why is that so? You don’t have as much survivability as a tank and you don’t deal the damage a Damage Dealer does (even Zenyatta shouldn’t have that much damage if your Damage Dealers do a decent job). So it is more often the case that you lose the game when you played very well because your team wasn’t good enough. I would highly recommend finding at least 2-3 people that you have trust in and which can play those roles.

2. Communication is the key:

Even if you are playing alone you have to be more communicative than a DD or a tank. Your ults are often a good (re)engage and when you stay in the backline you have a better overview than the Reinhardt in the front. These two things are very important to know when you make the decision to engage. At least you need often the help of your team when the enemy flankers want to kill you. So it’s very helpful for you and your team to call out positions of the enemies and calling for help, because they need your healing as well.

3. Dying is worse than killing:

Even if some supports are able to kill their opponents very well it is in general always better for your team instead of trading 1 for 1. When you die, your team loses a whole bunch of their healing and this is weakening your teammates very much. For Example you are playing Zenyatta and kill one of their DDs but die as well, on even skilled teams I think your team is losing the fight (of course dependable on the teamcomp) way more often than winning it. Especially on defense! The most important stat of a healer is the amounts of deaths! Since this stat doesn’t reward you with a medal, you really shouldn’t care about those. Not dying is your main priority.

4. The other support is your best friend:

It doesn’t matter which support you play, you should always take care about the other support in your team and help him if he’s in trouble. The worst thing your team can happen is a dead support. So it is always good to keep an eye on your other support, remember he is helping you healing and 2 guys always heal more than one.

5. Play of the game is often not the best choice you could have made

Solohealing:

You will have those guys who will pick a 7th Sniper, even if you need a second healer (Symmetra is not a healer by the way). Especially in lower ranking, this will happen a lot. This is my Tierlist for this special case (In this patch!) 1. Lucio 2. Ana 3. Mercy 4. Zenyatta

In this situation I wouldn’t recommend to play Zen, even if you’re good with him, because his healing output is far too low for solohealing and you have no mobility and very limited options to defend yourself against flankers. Ana is just before Mercy because her ult and her Bionade are very strong. Mercy has the better mobility and carry potential because you can make the fight 8-10 vs 6 with your Resurrect. Ana can kill way much better and can completely counter ults of the enemies but has to care about her positioning. Both have very decent healing. Lucio is clearly the best support for solohealing. High mobility, high AoE healing output a good ultimate with high support and the ability to finish wounded opponents. He is always the champ I pick when I have to soloheal.

Starting now with the Herospecific Things starting with

Lucio:

1. You can be in the frontline:

Lucio this patch is in my opinion the strongest Support, especially on attack and KotH. Best engage tool (Sound Barrier) and causing his high mobility and sometimes very hard to hit hitbox you can often engage in the frontline and getting very much attention on you without being very afraid of dying.

2. Use your speed boost and your Wallride passive:

Even in diamond and master there are Lucios who use their wallride far too less. Wallride is ideal to contest or escape situations you would die with every other support. So you reallly should learn to use it effectively. Same goes for the speed boost. Together with the Sound Barrier you can engage so fast, that you always have a good opportunity to win or to force in the worst case a bunch of the opponents Ults. Even without Sound Barrier the speed Boost is good tool to chase and to engage/disengage, so if it’s not super needed try to switch from heal to speed.

3. The rightclick of Lucio is very hard to use with an effective outcome for the team. At first you can try knock people off the map. The problem is that you are often very exposed when you try this because Lucio himself is the Hero you can knock off the stage most easy, so you should watch out. At least you can use your right click to safe your frontline from enemy Melees and safe yourself from Genji Ults (and u damage him while he deflects), but in these situations is no recipe existing when you have to use your right click and when not, but if you play Lucio for some time you’ll get a feeling of this.

Mercy:

1. Hiding > Healing:

This gamemechanic is often critizized but I personally like it very much. When your Ultimate is fully charged and the opponents engage you should try to separate yourself from the team (best case somewhere on highground). If your team gets wiped you can fly in and res them, if they’re going to win you can go back and heal them up. The reason is you will be often be the high priority target of everyone and if you die before your team you’re just useless and should better switch. So hide and res is mostly the best choice than being greedy and staying with the team.

2. Use the different grounds:

Your biggest opportunity to carry with mercy is your mobility. If the opponents are hunting you, it’s good to know where the healpacks are at (very important as Mercy!) and you can fly to your teammates who can help you out, if they are not hunting you just stay that far in the back where you can dodge most of the enemy ults, and heal. In both cases it’s good to switch between high and low ground because most characters can’t follow you and in solo queue the team communication is always lacking so it’s very hard to kill you. So you should always have the opportunity to fly to high/ low to escape bad situations.

3. Damageboost:

If you Damageboost someone as Mercy you have to trust the other support that he can heal the 3 other guys. Damage boost is very strong with the most ults and some high dmg chars like Hanzo, McCree, Pharah or Zarya. But remember that it is often more important, especially on defense, that your mates survive, not that they kill 1 more guy. Good Ults to Dmg boost: Mcree, Pharah Soldier, Roadhog, (Reinhardt, Mei), Bastion.

Zenyatta:

1. Spam!

I dont think that I have to explain it that much. Zen deals very high damage and if you are able to find some good spots to Spam (there is 1 spot minimum on each capture point map), you will often get 1 kill to slow down their push or deal some damage to charge your ult faster. Also, don’t forget your right click. It is strong as hell if used correctly.

2. Heal over Damage:

You deal a lot of dmg with Zenyatta but you should always remember that you are a support and your Harmony orb heals more than most people expect (30per second. To compare: Lucio with Amp It up heals 40). It also charges your ult pretty fast, so make sure to have it on someone all the time. Use it on people who are currently using their ults. If you see your Genji blading in, give it to him for as long as you can even if he’s full hp once he started casting it. Obviously switch it to someone else, if he is in danger.

3. Discord exposed opponents:

Everyone knows the classic Chargehardt. As Zenyatta it’s your job to kill this guy. At least it’s very helpful to know when enemies are exposed, cause there are not much champs who can punish this harder (Bughog). At least you should try to aim for discord supports or tanks, cause focusing supports is always fine, and tanks give you a lot of ultcharge and if they are dead you can kill the DDs which are much easier to kill without tanks. Also be fast with this thing, it has no cooldown. In example, when your Roadhog hooks a Reaper, try to E him before Roadhog shoots. With Discord your Hog should be able to oneshot Reaper, giving him no time to use Wraith form.

4. Transcendence:

This is possibly one of the strongest ults in the game since it can completely negate pretty much every Non-Burst-Damage Ability. You can use it to counter: Graviton, Earthshatter, Blizzard, Dragonblade, Death Blossom, Visor, Barrage. Countering graviton is harder than you might think. First of all, never ult instantly the moment their Zarya ults. Wait until a mate of yours is low. That way there’s a high chance the enemies will blow another ult (In example Dragonblade) and you can counter more than that. Also, if you have a Lucio on your team, make sure to communicate with him about the ults. Having an ally with Sound barrier being inside your transcendence is a complete waste of your ult, since you only heal, but the shields won’t come back once they’ve been damaged. Earthshatter is hard to counter since you need quick reactions. If you manage to press Q fast enough, you won’t be stunned. If he stuns you, you can’t transcend and will most likely die. Stay far away from the Reinhardt. His ult does have a travel time, meaning in the back you have more time to react. Countering the other ults is pretty self-explaining, I guess. Note: Don’t use your ult if the enemy solo ults against 3-6. He will most likely instantly die anyways due to being focused, and you’ll have wasted your ult (Unless it’s a Reaper). Also: Ulting doesn’t remove your Harmony/Discord-Orb. So if you ult to protect your Team from a Genji Blade, make sure to E him first, so your team has an easier time killing him.

Ana:

As you might have seen from my career profile, I haven’t spent that much time playing this champ. I don’t want to provide false information about her, so I suggest you look somewhere else if you’re trying to learn her. Thanks for reading my guide! Feel free to leave any questions in the comments, I’ll be here somewhen and answer them. Cya and have good day everyone.