Overwatch Getting To Masters Tips

Tips by etcyl

1) Don’t spam the mic. Talk if you have to and if you need to. Spamming can be obnoxious, toxic, or just distracting. There will always be time to add someone as a friend or talk to them after the match about unrelated stuff.

2) Practice playing more than 1 – 2 heroes. If you can only main Lucio, Junkrat, Reinhardt, or Widow (as a few examples), chances are you won’t be as useful to your team. Practicing and being good at multiple heroes makes you versatile and more likely to have a better game / win. Ideally: learn to play at least 2 heroes from each category – tank, support, offense, defense.

3) Don’t split up your team if you don’t have to. Grouping up can be bad if the enemy is about to do an AOE attack like Zarya or Sombra’s ult, for instance. But chances are you can be better protected by your team, and target the enemy more effectively if you’re grouped. When your team is spread out, it makes them easier to be picked off.

4) Target supports. Supports don’t have much HP. They are therefore easy to kill. Killing them means the enemy team can’t heal. Getting the enemy’s Mercy down is especially useful. Before going into big team fights in particular, make sure your team is aware where the Mercy is. Try to take her out.

5) Treat your team politely. Your team won’t even want to win if you treat them like crap. You are all here to play the game competitively. Learn how to be a good sport, learn how to lose a match humbly, and learn how to give / receive constructive criticism. This wouldn’t be competitive if you never lost any matches, so expect it to happen sometimes.

6) Use the voice chat (if you have a mic)to call out whether an enemy is about to ult, if there’s an enemy behind your team, etc.

7) Speak calmly. There’s no reason to yell. Talking calmly, you will be heard and moreover your voice won’t agitate people unnecessarily. If you’re yelling at your team, chances are they will mute or ignore you.

8) Switch roles if you need to. Don’t stick to one hero if it isn’t working out for you. If your teammates want you to switch, maybe it’s a good idea to do so.

9) Practice anticipating when you should use your ult. Timing is everything. The tab button is not so far away, just press it to see if anyone else on your team has their ults. It takes half a second to press that button, and half a second to glance below everyone’s icon to see if they have their ults. If not, you can ask how close they are, but at least this way you’ll know immediately if you can combo your ult with anyone.

10) Practice aiming for head-shots. If that means going into the training module with bots, do it. It goes a long way.

11) Be open to your teammates playing heroes. If you’re on attack, but a teammate wants to play Widow, let them. Maybe they are even good enough to carry. What everyone needs to realize is that this game is versatile. There is more than one way to win a map. Give people a chance, but they should also switch off a hero if it’s not working out.

12) Realize that climbing in SR takes time. Blizzard doesn’t exactly always match you up perfectly with other people on your team that are precisely your skill level. If you’re having a lose-streak, perhaps it is best to take a break. 5 minutes, 30 minutes, a day, a week, it’s up to you. It wouldn’t be ‘competitive’ if you never lost any matches.

13) As a follow-up to 12), be open to taking a break between your games. Sometimes it can help for you to collect yourself after a heated match. You can reflect what went wrong, what went well – for both teams.

Tips by Intergral

Shooting zarya’s shield is sometimes worth it to secure a kill

Ulting to gain a small advantage several times is often better than waiting for 1 big ult – especially since the opportunity for a big ult might never actually happen.

Don’t ult into a fight that your team has already basically won (I.e. 3v6)

Don’t ult into a fight that your team has already basically lost (I.e. 4v6) unless you’re VERY sure it will turn the fight around OR you need to stall

Don’t wait in the early choke point for long periods of time on offense, an even trade is often an advantage because of the long walk back.

Always think about how safe you currently are — how hard would it be to get back to safety if you started getting shot at? Does the enemy have anything that can instant-kill you, or combo into an instant-kill? Can your healers see you? Are you in front of your tanks? Corners are your friend.

On defense, don’t die. Even if it means getting fewer kills. Even if it means you’re only bronze damage. If you’re alive, you can contest the point. If you’re alive, you can keep shooting and using your abilities. If you’re dead, you don’t have a chance to impact the game.

Try using your abilities more reactively: use Zenyatta ult because of some damage you see your teammates took or the Genji just ulted, not because “I was worried they might use it soon”. Basically, use abilities when they’re needed/helpful instead of trying to find uses for them every X seconds.

Don’t reload when you could still be shooting (on characters without reload cancels). You might miss an opportunity for an easy kill.
Use more of your ammo before reloading, unless you really have nothing to shoot at

Don’t do damage if you know there is NO WAY you can secure the kill unless it will get you an ultimate that you can use to turn the tides of battle SOON. Otherwise, you’re just feeding the enemy healer ults, which will rez your 5-man, making it pretty pointless.

If Mercy says die on point, be so aggressive that your death is actually likely. Either you get some kills because you were so agressive, or you die and she can rez.

Remember you have a melee weapon, which is helpful for finishing off the enemy when you’re a Damage over Time hero like Winston, or if you want to conserve ammo/don’t have enough left to kill them otherwise.

Also remember that many abilities have multiple uses: things like Ana grenades

Look at the kill feed! Then you can know when both healers are dead and stop playing as if you’re about to be healed.

Tips by Runt

What I’ve learned:

Find your strengths.
First discover what skill you’re really good at. Shotcalling? Mechanical Aim? Situational Awareness? Find the Hero that capitalizes on the play style. Then, get really good at them. Understand every little detail about the character, its synergies, its counters, everything. ‘Getting Good’ at a hero is just a loose term, but in my definition, it’s getting good at what the hero’s playstyle is meant to be. A player with godly mechanical aim will not be get the most value out of a hero such as Reinhardt, but will provide more value to the team as Widowmaker/Mccree. Work this out, and you will improve.

Don’t force a particular comp. 
Be open to any choice of hero selection. Judging a match’s outcome on the hero select screen is the last thing you should do. Even if they’ve never played a particular hero before, at least give them a chance. Too many people I’ve seen tries to force a 2-2-2 comp, then get tilted when it doesn’t go their way.

Focus on your own self-improvement. 
Unless they’re outright throwing, never blame your teammates. This only shifts the blame to them, and empowers yourself, causing you to stagnate and never improve. Take a vod of your own gameplay. Sounds cringey, but try to commentate your own gameplay in your head. When you start looking back, you will notice all the mistakes you did not realize earlier. Focus on one thing to improve at a time. Don’t try to look at the pro players and force a certain playstyle upon yourself. Focus on yourself, improve your flaws, then look at the pro players for the micro details to fine tune your playstyle.

Enhancing/Reinforcing Game Knowledge
Take a little downtime each day to read up on the Hero statistics, understanding the Heroes traits (Damage done, skill abilities, cooldowns). The extra knowledge will prove beneficial to enhancing/reinforcing your game knowledge.

Aim to learn at least one new thing about the game each day. The overwatch wiki is an amazing place to get started with. http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/Overwatch_Wiki

A Friendly Greeting
A friendly ‘hello’ in the team chat goes a long way. You need not be the team entertainer, telling them your entire life story.

Similar to a downward salt spiral, initiating, as well as being friendly on chat/voice could potentially lead to team members opening up, playing better and encouraging each other, eventually increasing your chances of winning the game. There’s so many games in mid-high plat that we won (even 5v6) not because of ‘skill’, but through teamwork and not giving up!

Six Second Pause.
Sometimes, you get called out for being a ‘bad player’. Being defensive is the first thing that’ll come to mind, but that very same survival component (our amygdala) is what drags us down to lose games. Most games are lost not because of the individual’s lack of skill, but the tilt which tunnels the team’s awareness and emotions.

Take a deep breath, count to 6.

Be the better man.

Praise the accuser for his ‘good’ gameplay if you have to, if it means preventing the situation from spiraling out of control. Know that you have the power of diplomacy to make or break the team, which is greater than mechanical skill alone. Critique on your gameplay, switch if you have to, avoid mistakes if you need to. Review your game when it’s over. Identify your mistakes, as well as how you can improve on your future games.