Overwatch Sigma Strategy Guide

by Hypocritical_Midget

If you prefer to learn things in a video format over text, here’s a link to basically Everything Below In Under 15 Minutes: https://youtu.be/-aIqmMou0DY Time Stamps are also embedded throughout the scroll bar so you can skip to which bits suit you.

SIGMA HYPERSPHERES

This makes Sigma fire out two gravitic charges, dealing 55 direct damage each, wielding a projectile speed of 50 Meters per Second, with a maximum range of 22 Meters before implosion. There is also a small amount of self-damage, and a area of effect of 3 meters when considering the implosion radius.

SIGMA HYPERSPHERES TECH AND USAGE

1. You can cancel your primary fire animation by using any of your abilities, including your melee.

• This may be useful to quickly half a Tracer’s Health in close range, or to perform a quick 155 damage burst, which is done by using your rock first, then using your primary fire, then immediately using melee after.
• Other than that, there is no reason to Melee at the end of your first shot, as it drastically lowers DPS, and you are left defenceless

1. The typical one-shot combo for 200 HP Characters is to use Accretion, then Primary Fire, then melee at the end, dealing a total of 210 damage
2. There is a little bit of knock back with Sigma’s Primary Fire. You can abuse this by using the knock back to elevate you to certain Highgrounds. A Great Example would be on Hanamura 1st Point Defense, by the platform towards the right side of choke. I

• I highly recommend you practice these in custom games, although you can pull off something similar which I’ll mention later on with Sigma’s latter abilities
• Getting used to these will make you able to pull these off mid-game when your cooldowns are all not available; Nor is your Gravitic Flux to repositon

1. You can utilise this knockback even more to gain kill credit for when your teammates boop an enemy off the map, which rewards you with ult charge.

• The knockback also slightly pulls enemies towards the centre of the Hyperspheres themselves, allowing you to land your follow up shots more easily

1. Don’t bother shooting the enemy Orisa shield (Or any shield for that matter) just because you can

• Despite the Gold Damage Medals that wouldn’t be surprising for many Sigma’s to have, the DPS (Damage Per Second) That Sigma does is quite low, hence if you’re shooting/attempting to break shields (Which can be totally subconscious/Autopilot, even seen in the border of 3K Games) you might as well be playing Roadhog
• Instead, playing Off Angles, and punishing bad positioning is what you should be doing; Even if you are playing Sigma as a main tank. An example of this could be on Route 66 1st Point Defense, where instead of dropping down to contest cart, you take control of Highground on Big Earl’s to detract attention from the frontline, and direct healing/damage resources else where
• The reason why Off-Angles are vital (In any character apart really) Is that it forces you to play in a pro-active style rather than play reactively based upon what is happening in front of you.

1. Aim at the Feet of Your Enemy

• This is mainly so that you have two opportunities to hit your enemies instead of one. The first opportunity is hitting your enemy directly, and the second is letting the Hyperspheres bounce off the ground to the hit your target, primarily applying in short ranges against mobile characters
• Aiming at the feet of your enemy also decrease the range of your hyperspheres, meaning that if you miss, the splash damage will still take effect (Specifically at shorter ranges). The more of an angle you aim downwards, the less the horizontal range that the hyperspheres will travel

SIGMA EXPERIMENTAL BARRIER

This makes Sigma throw out a floating barrier in which Sigma deploys in a straight line at any angle of your choosing, with the ability to retrieve the barrier at any time. The shield has 900 Health, regenerates at 120 Shield Per second after being down for 2 seconds, and has a cooldown of 1 second after being recalled, but a cooldown of 5 seconds after being broken, alongside a projectile speed of 16.5 Meters Per Second (For Reference, Firestrike is 25 m/s)

SIGMA EXPERIMENTAL BARRIER TECH + USAGE

1. Make sure to shield when using your ultimate to prevent any incoming damage, or to prevent you from being stunned out of your flux

• This obviously requires a decent level of awareness, and the ability to not panic flux.
• Also keep in mind that at certain off-angles, you may still be stunned. For example, on Junkertown 3rd Point Defense, where a McCree may be on the rotating piece of highground, ready to stun you
• The statement above is even more true when playing Sigma against Dive Comps or comps that want to play extremely split (EG Playing against Hog Ball, where it can be very difficult to get any value out of Flux)

1. Angle your shield to block Transcendence or Beat

• If you toss your shield in a Grav in such a way where it blocks L.O.S. From the Zen using Trans, and his teammates, all healing from transcendence will not go through
• The same can apply against Lucio Beat, but since it’s not a second-to-second ping, it’s very difficult to predict and pre-emptively throw your Barrier

1. Use your shied to block off healing from the Opposing Supports

• When running against an Ana Zen on a somewhat linear map, tossing your shield can either force them to reposition in order to heal their teammates, or for them to focus you down to bring the shield down
• This also works against Moira to some extent as her Biotic Grasp doesn’t work through barriers, however her healing orb does; Hence you can shield to force these cooldowns
• Also tell your other tank (Especially if it’s a Reinhardt) to play more aggressively as the opposing tanks don’t have healing for a respectable period of time
• However, keep in mind this may be a lower priority in terms of shield usage compared to shielding your Widowmaker to help her win the duel
• This works best against Ana Zen as they have limited mobility compared to the other supports.

1. Shield Dancing

• This is done by projecting your shield straight on (Minimise any angle of depression or elevation when throwing out your shield) then weave on either side of it
• Best utilised against mobile DPS heroes who may find it difficult to track your movement

1. Shield Against Barrage

• Tank is probably the worst role in general for contesting a Pharah/Let Alone a Pharmercy
• A simple tip to deny her barrage is to throw your shield in her face whilst she barrages, so that the splash damage from the barrage kills herself.
• The hitbox of Kinetic Grasp is too small to absorb all damage (Unless She barrages straight in your face)

1. Cancel Barrier Whilst Using Rock or Grasp

• This will be particularly useful for the latter ability as you can efficiently maximise shield resource, which will be gone more in depth on in the last section of this guide

1. Shield Against Important Cooldowns

• Similar to Winston’s Bubble, Sigma shield is moreso used to block important cooldowns instead of tanking damage
• The most prominent examples of these being Ana Nade, Sleep, McCree Flash, Hog Hook
• Whilst this conceptually, isn’t difficult to wrap your head around, it’s very difficult to reliably pull this off mid-game. It’s also very important to try and do this when running a Reinhardt, where Ana’s love to toss every single cooldown towards the opposing Reinhardt; Especially whilst they are swinging

1. Do Not Block Irrelevant Spam Damage

• I see a lot of Sigma’s block a lot of ranged spam damage before they even come into range around the first corner
• This is especially important to note when playing Sigma as a Main Tank, as your shield is the only source of cover

1. Do not Play Close to Your Shield

• Whilst playing too afar from your shield will open yourself up to multiple angles of damage, playing too close will neither cover your teammates, and potentially makes you vulnerable to character such as Mei, who can simply walk past your shield

1. Do not leave your shield hanging out in the middle of nowhere

• This is mainly aimed towards <2500 Players
• There are a few obvious reasons why: The 1 Second Shield Cooldown may be lfie saving against blocking a shatter/Dynamite/Source of Damage, the shield doesn’t recharge, and you aren’t getting full value from each of your cooldowns

SIGMA KINETIC GRASP

This makes Sigma absorb incoming damage for 2 seconds, converting them into shields which decay at 7 shields per second. Kinetic Grasp has a maximum range of 3 meters, and 60% of damage absorbed is converted into temporary shields. Grasp also has a lengthy cooldown of 10 seconds – Think of it as D.Va’s Matrix but with the hitbox of Genji’s Deflect

SIGMA KINETIC GRASP TECH + USAGE

1. Kinetic Grasp can be cancelled by using Accretion. However, since the shields are gained at the very end of kinetic grasp, no shields will be cancelled if this is done.

• The Main purpose of this is to rock someone off the map before the get out of L.O.S. or to stun an ultimate, which will most likely receive more value than the shields you gain

1. Absorb certain projectile ultimates

• If your reaction times are quick enough, you can eat Zarya’s Grav, Mei’s Blizzard, or Hanzo’s Dragonstrike in close range
• In order to help you do this, Zarya’s will often walk forward on high energy, bubble, then use grav. (In the higher ranks, they’ll do this to force out cooldowns, and to play mind games with the enemy team, so beware). Similar movement will ensue with Mei, and the most common time to eat Dragonstrike is when the opposing Zarya Gravs, and you happen to be beyond their Zarya, in front of their Hanzo, who will reactively use his Dragonstrike

1. As Kinetic Grasp can’t be cancelled other than Accretion, beware of being rocked by the opposing Sigma, or by any stuns for that matter

• A lot of Sigma’s will subconsciously Grasp forward, attempting to gain shields, but will be rocked/stunned by the opposing Sigma
• You can use this to your strength however, by saving accretion for the opposing Sigma who may use Grasp aggressively

Other than that, you’ll most likely be using Grasp as soon as your Shield Breaks/Goes Down to absorb large amounts of burst damage, and to buy time for your shield to recharge. In special cases, Sigma can grasp against a Bastion bunker comp, or against a Bap Matrix for similar reasoning; In which Sigma is a very strong counter to

SIGMA ACCRETION

This makes Sigma fling a mass of debris towards an enemy, dealing 70 damage, and decreasing his movement speed by 75%. The projectile speed is 37.5 meters per second, taking 0.65 seconds to cast, alongside an area of effect of 2.5 meters, and will cast a stun of 0.8 seconds to any opponent who is directly hit by it. Sigma’s rock also has up to a 4 meter knockback if the ability lands directly onto an opponent, and in conjunction with the stun, accretion is one of the most powerful stuns in the game. The cooldown is also a lengthy 10 seconds, likewise to his Grasp.SIGMA ACCRETION TECH + USAGE

There isn’t anything with Tech that I haven’t mentioned prior (155 HP Combo, 210 Combo, ETC.) Hence I’ll move on to usage

1. Knockback

• Aside from damage, the 4 meter knockback can knock hitscan DPS Players such as Ashe, Widow, from highground. This can put them in a disadvantageous position in which they are vulnerable to dive, or force out a mobility cooldown from them to either get back on highground, or for them to escape
• Environmental kills are also viable as well
• Another niche use of Accretion is to propel you to highground. Similar to the Hypersphere tip to boost yourself to highground, you can also do the same on Hanamura, but way more consistently, as the self-knockback is 2 meters. The only drawback is that this may not be feasible in the midfight or at the end of a fight as Accretion may be on cooldown; Although there is no reason to not do this before the game starts

1. Stun

• This is the third primary use of Accretion (Past Damage and Knockback). Saving Accretion to stun defensive cooldowns such as Hog’s Breather, or to stun ultimates such as Moira’s Coalescence, McCree’s High Noon, or Whole Hog can be game-changing. Reaper Blossom is especially an important one as he is a slow moving target who will most likely be in an aggressive position

SIGMA GRAVITIC FLUX

This makes Sigma lift enemies in a 7 meter radius, lifting them in the sky for 50 damage, then slamming them back down for 50% of the max health. Sigma’s movement speed increases to 7.15 meters per second, with a total cast time of 1.6 seconds, and a duration of 2.6 seconds when lifting the enemy (2 Seconds when enemies are lifted, 0.6 seconds when they are under high gravity IE They are slammed back in the ground)

SIGMA GRAVITIC FLUX TECH

If you are a Sigma main reading this past 3500, this is the MOST IMPORTANT and MOST USEFUL part of the guide since the Tech I’m going to reveal to you CANNOT be found on Reddit, YouTube, IG, and other Social Media Platforms aside Twitch (Since this is where I got this from).

This ‘special‘ piece of tech is going underneath your enemy whilst they are mid-air during your flux, in order to make them land on your head instead of the ground.

Now, initially, this doesn’t sound like much. However, with a little bit more thinking, this piece of Tech counters practically half of the abilities in the game that save you from taking damage from the Flux. I’ll go over the reasons to why this is so important

1. The Most Obvious, and Basic Level of Reasoning is that it decreases TTK (Time to Kill) Meaning that you have an extra half a second to deal damage etc.
2. The MAIN Reason to do this is if the enemy have a Baptiste: His immortality field does not have a vertical hitbox large enough to catch teammates at the apex of Gravitic Flux
3. However, this also works extremely well against characters who need to gain value from landing the ground (And therefore, cannot prevent damage midway through Flux). An example is Ana’s Nade, where the nade splash is obviously too little to reach Ana at the apex of Flux, hence she has to time her nade in the 0.6 second time frame of high gravity for it to take affect. You can also surprise players that love to wait at the very end of Flux to use their escape abilities, such as Moira, or Zarya.

The MAIN Drawback to this tech is that you put yourself in a very aggressive and vulnerable position, THEREFORE to counteract this…

1. Use this on Defense. This is because you aren’t going into the enemies, the enemies are going into you. E.G. Volskaya 2nd Point Defense is a fantastic place to pull this tech off
2. If you shield to roughly where the opposing Ana/Character with CC will be, you can block their stun and pull off the tech at the same time.

Although… I’d stick to just doing this on a Baptiste. If the enemy aren’t running any stuns (Especially in the backline) this is just free extra value not only for your team, but also DENIED from the enemy team.

CREDIT TO OCTOTROPH FOR THIS TECH: I just happened to be watching his stream a month ago, and this tech has stuck with me from that point in time.

Other than this, the other tips mentioned prior E.G. Shielding before Flux, also apply

SIGMA GRAVITIC FLUX USAGE

1. Repositioning

• A common tip for Flux is too simply abuse the added movement speed and the ability to fly by going on Highground
• Great examples of this would be on Kings Row 3rd Point Defense, Route 66 2nd Point Defense
• Keep in mind that even when you activate your Flux, you still have the ability to fly upwards until the 2.6 second duration is over

1. Abuse Natural or Artificial Cover

• A lot of Sigma’s like to float aimlessly up in the air, similar to how many Echo players just hold down their jump button whilst activating her flight ability
• This will leave you exposed to many sources of Damage and Long range CC’s if you linger in the air during your Flux
• Tying into this, against Snipers, you want to immediately L.O.S. them during Flux as you have the ability to be oneshot (Unless you are sure that your shield will not break).

1. Kite As Double Shield

• When being run over by a Brawl or Dive Comp (as you either haven’t kited in time, or the opposing team have a Lucio and you don’t) Gravitic Flux can be one of the best counters to run away/kite from whatever is attacking you (Since if enemies are in the air, they obviously can’t move
• This at the very least, forces cooldowns, potentially ultimates, with the possibility of picking off a character or two

1. Flux Vs Nanoblade

• As Nanoblade is such an extremely powerful ultimate, just countering it will be a big play
• You want to wait for Genji’s first dash AFTER he used blade (Not Before as he will get his dash reset as soon as he uses blade) as it will take him ATLEAST one Slash for him to kill someone and get his dash reset. In this time period of him slashing someone, you pop Flux ontop of the Genji to raise him in the air, preventing his Nanoblade

1. Flux To Force Transcendence/Lucio Beat

• If your win condition is Nanoblade, but the opposing Lucio has Beat, you can flux the Lucio to force beat, then Nanoblade after

1. Target Priority in Flux

• Similar to tunnel visioning on one enemy (Specifically a tank) Focusing a squishy target will receive infinitely more value than focusing an Orisa who will probably use her Fortify to escape Flux in the first place

1. Force out as Many Cooldowns as You Can In Flux

• Cooldowns that prevent damage taken from Flux/Minimise it, try and pressure that character specifically to force out those cooldowns. E.G. Zarya Bubble is the most prominent one, Hog’s Breather, Orisa Fortify

SIGMA POSITIONING/TEAM COMP

Whilst this is an important area for Sigma Players, there isn’t a specific formula, nor is it the most defining aspect of his kit, unlike a character such as Zenyatta

• If Playing Sigma as a Main Tank (E.G. Sigma Hog) You need to be cautious with your shield resource as if it breaks, you and your teammates will be left without any angle to contest
• This also ties in with the concept that you should treat your Cooldowns, Your Shield, and your Primary Fire as 3 Different Entities. This means that just because you shield in one direction DOES NOT mean you have to shoot in that direction, and therefore it does not mean you have to use your cooldowns all in that direction
• A great example of this would be shielding for a Widowmaker, then shooting at the frontline, and perhaps using your Accretion to Rock a Squishy on an off-angle
• This also ties into the concept of utilising Off Angles as mentioned prior.
• There’s Also a bit of counter-intuitiveness about ‘Because I’m Main Tank, I MUST contest cart’ when in reality, there may be characters on your team who are more suited for that job
• For instance, when running Sigma Hog or Sigma D.Va, your off-tank should be contesting the point/cart. Same with running a Brig, or a Mei, who want a brawl on the cart
• In terms of the broader picture, don’t run Sigma against Dive. There are exceptions to the rule (Such as Double Shield => You can kite effectively with Halt + Accretion) however his Grasp his useless against Winston’s Tesla Cannon, his damage can be easily eaten, and whilst his Accretion is a strong stun ability, it is not enough to withstand a dive. Your shield also receives little value despite it being the most versatile in the game

SIGMA FRONTLINE TANK SYNERGIES

Sigma and Reinhardt: This tank duo has the most amount of mathematical shielding, although there is no direct synergy. A small tip would be to pin the opposing tank player when they are coming down from your Sigma’s flux, and to shield at the start of your Reinhardt’s pin. Sigma Rein is also a hybrid of Poke and Brawl, where your Reinhardt flanks with a Lucio, and you poke from the angles that he creates. In spite of this, good scouting, and the ability to rotate effectively, will burn out any resources that is inputted into the Reinhardt. Aside from this niche tactic, highground contest as an off-tank is also recommended.

Sigma and Orisa: This duo provides a high level of versatile cover, with Sigma being able to utilise Orissa’s halt by performing the Halt plus accretion or Halt plus Flux combo. Use flux to kite away from danger in case you are being overrun by Brawl or Dive.

Sigma and Winston: Whilst this duo has no direct synergy in terms of ultimates and abilities, you have good coverage of the high and low ground. However, perhaps Reinhardt is a better pick than Sigma in order to be more aggressive whenever your Winston dives in on the backline

Sigma and Roadhog: Similar to Winston, there is no direct synergy with Sigma. As you will be playing main tank, try not to be overtly aggressive on the frontline, as your Roadhog should be the one contesting cart or point mainly.

Sigma and Wrecking Ball: This duo is essentially the upgraded version of Sigma Winston. Wrecking Ball’s Knockback pairs well with Sigma as he can easily punish anyone out of position, and since Wrecking Ball will be tanking most of the enemy stuns, you can use your Flux aggressively. One tip is to combo your Flux with Minefield to kill anyone who is caught in the Flux.

Sigma and Zarya: This duo is best suited against bunker style comps such as Orisa Hog, although do not run Sigma Zarya against Dive. While both characters can dish out a high level of damage, there is no defensive capability, with a limited amount of cover, no access to high ground, and few stuns. One thing that you need to get used to in Sigma Zarya is rotating the cooldowns you are given efficiently. IE Grasp, Bubble, Shield, and Repeat. This will make you maximise value from each ability, and if you are given Zarya Bubble when your shield is up, take it down ASAP to get value from your bubble

Sigma and Diva: This is a more defensive version than Sigma Zarya, with less front-line resources in exchange for extreme damage denial and high-ground contest, alongside the ability to peel for your supports. However, the biggest counter would either be a double shield comp or a coordinated brawl comp, as there is either too much cover, or too little frontline capability respectively.

EDIT 1: You can ‘jump’ from 2nd Point Volskaya Attack to the adjacent highground by using Accretion (IE More Knockback than Hyperspheres)

EDIT 2: Sieging Shields, and blocking spam damage, and finding gaps within shielding to land your abilities and Hyperspheres can definitely be viable. Poking down shields from range to ensure that the opposing team don’t have any artificial cover to push, especially against Rein-based comps, is a solid playstyle – Consider doing this at an OT paired with an Orisa.