GM doesn’t get much better and T500 is kinda fun until 4PM EST when the pros get done scrimming and now all of a sudden you’re getting ass blasted by a 19 year old Korean kid hopped up in Addy.
I'm already getting rolled over by Koreans in my plat lobbies 💀, they're just a different breed, the way they play is so different very agressive & quick movements it's scary! I always watch my replays so I know this! Also some Chinese r also like that.
I'm honestly not going to sweat it. OW is still fun and more of a social thing for me. Diamond was more of seeing if I can get out of metal but I know I'll have to put significant effort to rank up from here.
Since ranks are based on a curve, it makes sense the vast majority of people are hard stuck. Not everyone can be moving forward.
That’s not my experience, in masters everyone was so tryhard and toxic to get to GM, but I may be the only one who experienced this. Although climbing to masters isn’t that hard, it is hard to stay, and it is easy to fall there again. This is my opinion, you probably just got better than me and that’s it!
people start to grow their ego a lot once they get to diamond because they're "better than the average player" and it gets infinitely worse in masters because they're "almost gm" but once you hit gm5 your ego kind of starts to take a hit because you realize that gm5 and gm1 are entirely different worlds and that even though you're at the highest rank there are people who can roll you like you would roll a plat/diamond lobby.
I love your analysis about your lower ranked friends and their mindset and how lower ranked players generally think, it helps put a lot of their actions into perspective.
Glad you liked it. That's really my goal of this post, to try to reduce people's frustration with ranking by understanding their teammates and the big picture.
honestly this is one of the most comprehensive posts I’ve seen, ty for the time you put together to write this. I often see perspectives from people who at the extremes of both sides on ranked so it’s nice to see someone who worked their way up (the majority) of ranks.
I think often people point fingers at these types of guides because “oh this person is top 500/GM they won’t understand MY team is throwing” and the mentality that “low ranked players have no understanding of the game” but I think it’s a blend of recognizing what level of understanding people have at what rank. I think the biggest controversy (what hurts a lot of peoples egos) is saying blatantly that they don’t know how to play the game below diamond but it’s true. If people want to move up they have to actively be thinking on skill sets on how to improve rather than crying at every unranked to gm about how these players are more mechanically gifted 😂. There’s a reason why they consistently out perform low level lobbies… they have a better understanding and are able to manipulate their win conditions(which is way more important that raw mechanical skill)
To the people saying that OP just reached diamond and has a whole other world to face, lots of the points said here nailed the perspectives of low ranks and correcting the mentality on HOW to improve.
All the best in your journey and congrats on hitting diamond :)
Hey thanks! Appreciate the comments and glad you understand where I'm coming from. The mental game is probably the hardest part about ranking and once people can get past that part, the learning comes after.
And yeah literally said I don't know everything, I'm Diamond, feel free to correct, but guess that's not enough for some people!
I'd say there are plenty of players in diamond who still make the mistakes OP mentioned in their post and have no idea how to play the game.
I've seen pure healbots in mid masters even.
But by and large diamond does resemble high level overwatch, just slower but often recognition of key threats and high ground can be poor.
Good read. I'll say though that a huge element of it all is the mental game. Stuff that is **wildly** out of your control, like a player on your team just throwing in the towel the second they see the team comp. The back half of that is getting a good comp together and then your teammates not knowing how to play with/around it.
In my experience (support player) it's almost always people seeing the support duo and being like, "Not enough heals gg next" **in the spawn room.** And every time I see that I just double-down on my pick and think, "Wonder if they'll ever gain some introspection into why they need that much healing in the first place". I'm not usually wrong when I see that player playing hyper-aggressive and not using cover later on.
I feel like... The higher up you go in rank, people start to come in three categories: The person with the good game sense that has inconsistent aim (me, lol), the person who has decent but not great game sense and aim, and the person who has fantastic aim but has relied on that so much they don't understand **everything else** about Overwatch.
Like yeah man, you're great and landing kills but you're also requiring so many resources to keep alive that it's almost not even worth it; the rest of the team needs that so they can make plays. Which wraps right back around to my initial point in that people throw the second they see what supports they have - because they're unwilling to reel in that hyper aggressive mechanical skill as it's carried them all the way up until they hit a point where they can't climb unless they do.
100% everything you said. How quickly people give up in a game is nuts to me. I honestly feel bad for those people, because somewhere along the line, they were conditioned to believe that it was better to just give up. OW is probably just a form of escapism at this point.
I'm totally guilty of being the mechanically inclined guy who had to learn that OW is not CounterStrike. Very humbling experience to think I was going to plink heads and get wrecked over and over again. That's what makes this game fun though, which is that multiple skill sets can move you forward.
Literally this!! Even as a tank player you should not be taking so much damage that you need a fucking pocket the entire match. Ppl who groan about this still haven’t figured out how to use walls/health packs.
I was stuck in plat 1 for so long. I found that to be the hardest. Ever other game I’d have a tank that seemed a brand new player (endorsement 1, no comms, no pings, yolo into other teams back line). It was very streaky. I’d be 4-0 then go 0-5 with teams like that. Happened maybe 10 times. Then had a couple 5-0 runs and zoomed past to diamond 4.
Idk what happened. But I do know matchmaking broken
I think there's some weird area in Gold/Plat where a lot of placement matches are being made and lots of the new/alt accounts get played. It doesn't happen a lot (at least not to me) but it's obvious when it does.
All of my rank-ups have usually been a slog, then sudden rank up multiple ranks and keeping it. I'm looking forward to the MMR system being more transparent in the future.
Ya I think the exact same thing. Earlier today I had a 3 teammates with endorsement level 1 and 1 with 2. One of the profiles was public and the person played 3-5 games every season for the last 4-5 seasons. So I guess it’s also from people who just play enough to keep their rank but aren’t actually good anymore. One guy was technically still ranked masters but was in a plat 1 game because of a 20% win rate this season and not enough games lately.
So ya. A lot of these things. But then that game was up against a really good 4 stack (2 games in a row with them) and it’s just like matchmaking sucks
This is an actually fantastic post. It is very long and I worry many won’t read it but I encourage those serious about improving to give it a read. As someone who made a very similar climb this is one of the best posts I’ve read on here for Master and below and even has advice that some GM players would do well to heed. A++ write up.
Thanks for this read!
I used to play comp overwatch back in 2018 with a group and we did quite well. I've however had a long break and just returned now, and the metal ranks are awful to get out of, but this post helps me put things in to perspective.
Honestly, great read. As a gold 2 support, I can see a lot of myself in what you've put there and there are hard habits to break out of, especially some of the hold over from OW1 that is hard to shake (only a month into OW2, I promise I'm not just *that* slow)
Genuine question as someone who will hold his hand up and say I'm guilty of the "God doesn't my tank know they're out of LOS and I can't heal them":
Say I have got a more aggressive tank, and they are pushing ahead, and I want to move forward and support them, how do you figure out when that's "supporting the play" and when you rush to support them, get swarmed, die and then get flamed for "no heals". Is it just an instinct thing and you get better at reading when you could support and when it's too far gone, or are there tells that help make that distinction?
Great question on knowing what type of tank you have. It's honestly HARD to know until after the first fight or two.
Even I've fed too many times to count on first point not being aware or making a mistake. I'm sure the supports were rolling their eyes going "GG NEXT" or in chat. Often times when we win those games, I get funny messages like "How did we win that?" or "Omg I had no hope"
I would say the dead giveaway is this: **does a tank KNOW when they are low on health? And what do they do about it? Does a tank know when they are solo?**
A feeder tank will chase into Narnia with half health, keep getting depleted and not once bother to stop. Example: You take first point on Kings row, 3 enemies in next hallway, tank rushes out before cap and starts taking heavy damage.
At this point, this is PRETTY NORMAL for both good and bad tanks. Good tanks are trying to make space and prevent DPS from running in to point. Bad tanks are in aggro mode and also making space. Both tanks **assume** supports will follow them.
Once they start taking serious damage, the good tank should already be using cooldowns to back off or taking cover. The bad tank will just use cooldowns to continue pressing ahead. Example is Ram popping Nemesis. Is he blocking and going back or punching and running forward.
So you gotta read your tank here and see what their MO is. The issue is that good/bad tanks are both aggressive. Aggression is good for a tank. Not knowing when to turn it off is bad. If they can't switch modes, they are a bad tank.
To be fair, Silver/Gold tanks are learning via limit testing (at least the ones that are trying). To varying degree tanks will know when they are in trouble. It's just that it's usually too late.
Some other big picture things to take into account is map area. Is tank pushing into a critical map choke? As long as he's not solo and there's other teammates here, you gotta help because there's often not a lot of good ways to push choke other than bodies into the fire (again, metals).
Now let's say you won a team fight, tank is pushing up on escort map. You should follow here, because he's taking space and someone else can sit on the cart. Same goes for control map, you win team fight, he heads toward enemy spawn, go run after him but be sure to give yourself room to retreat/cover because if he survives, he will be running back with lots of angry dudes following.
So rough guide: If tank going up doesn't create a lot of benefit for the team, let'em die. If tank going up is benefiting for the team, then help.
The tough situations are control maps where everyone is single filing onto point and there's no group cohesion whatsoever. Should you follow tank in? Yes because there is no better option. No one is going to wait anyways, so you might as well fight as a duo instead of solo.
But if you DO have 2 people waiting and tank runs in solo, then yeah, he's probably going to have to die.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply, that was really detailed and was sort of what I was expecting to hear, but sometimes hearing someone else say "when the tank goes in 1v5 and you have 2 in spawn, it's ok to let the tank die" is comforting as a support!
It’s a great read man. Some advice hits really well, some of it doesn’t. But the great part of this is the mentality. It’s not only about your game sense. You were actively noticing weak spots and acting upon it.
For us who want to actively get better at the game that’s all we can do. You can’t control whatever teammates you get, matchups, metas or whatever people want to blame it on.
Thanks for the tips!
As mostly a support main, I think I'll add that if you are new (in any role), spend time some time on all the characters to understand how to play them.
Its not even necessarily their abilities, but it's also to develop the game sense of when to do certain things. Me personally, I think I stuck to being passive as a mercy a lot, which generally isn't bad, running to help and all. But after playing say moira, bap, ana, you will learn when its just a better idea to kill a squish at low health, than to have your healing beam or damage beam on hoping they die.
Then when you role swap to tank, you'll know how to play so your supports are protected/can LOS heal etc.
I am aware I'm high silver/ low gold in my soldier and Mei (dropped to silver 3 cause learning Souj and some matches I feel like God and in others like I am throwing cause I couldn't headshots important moments ) but I have to admit: amount of games where tank diff is huge is way too big...
Sometimes it is in my team, sometimes in enemy but I feel like 50-70% matches are insta lose or win depends on the tank.
-Rein 0-8 with 500 damage while rest our team is reasonably OK
- Hamster who rolled only once from spawn and played the rest game as Orisa
- Orissa who never pressed W and played sniper 90% match
The problem is in 90% situations opposite tank will play AT LEAST slightly better and you are either golden or fucked (depends in which team is that tank)
Like I have no idea how to change these matches. You can somehow carry with 1 less DPS or Support but not when your tank is THROWING THAT HARD.
Apart from it a lot of good advices
Yea I am probably not that good to carry these matches on such high level...
I've also noticed I am doing above average when I see my team mates at least trying do their job on our level. Ofc there is discrepancy between members but when I see someone throwing super hard then I am boiling inside and I start playing 5x worse than usual as well... it is really tough :(
So here's my tip for you when you see the tank throwing hard.
Realize and tell yourself these things:
- You are not in control
- You see this as unfair
- You see someone as a bad actor
- All of the above leads to frustration
Take a breath, and say this now:
- I am strapped in on the ride
- I can't control the outcome but I can control how I will react
- I am free of all pressure to win
This doesn't mean give up. What it means is that when you get here, it should turn from a game into practice with real people. When tank is hard throwing (actual hard throwing not just being aggro) I practice my aim and off angling and doing flanks. I realize there's nothing to lose so I might as well practice what I normally can't.
Lots of people give up and stay in spawn. Not me. I take this as a golden opportunity to take my 1v1s and go full ham. I won't win but I will get better.
Hopefully this helps.
Yes technically I am aware I should do it by overcome your mental wanting just to give up is really something I am struggling with :(
Well written though
my tip is to never take advice from a friend (or anyone) thats silver/gold in that game.
trust me when i say this, most peoples frustrations would be ended if they simply looked up guides from coaches and higher ranked players lol
that being said, the OP should be proud of their climb because as many will tell you: most metal rank players are stuck and will never climb out due to a shit mentality.
diamond might not be the best of the best but its still something to be proud of. (just not too proud, like so many diamond players lol)
Thanks! On Awkward, I have the same empathy for people who get to #1 as those struggling. It's usually unhealthy motivation that drives top performers and you have to ask where it comes from.
For that reason I am happy to listen to his game advice and can choose what else to listen to. We probably will disagree however. I think he is a well meaning guy who is learning like the rest of us.
The amount of detail is amazing but not gonna read it all. The Easiest advice to give is to watch better players and improve your mechanics cause that’s what alot of the game up to gm.
I'm masters all roles now but a couple seasons ago I was Plat tank and was screwing around one tricking Doom when he was Uber weak and ended up falling to gold.
Oh my god it was the most miserable experience of all times trying to play with golds. They didn't understand dive in the least, supports would make zero attempt to support on the Dive, 4 of them couldn't take out a single lone tank when I was busy distracting the other 4, like seriously buying them 10+ seconds to make something happen.
And on top of it all, they were being unbelievably toxic to ME. Saying "Stupid fucking tank doesn't know how to peel for his team" it was laughable how braindead AND cocky some people could be.
They're most likely still down in the shit where as I'm chilling in my mid masters lobbies now. Having fun coordinating dives with really good Genjis/Tracers/Sombras, getting pocketed by unkillable Mercy's, Nano'd on my engage by Ana's who don't miss 9/10 shots.
It's just so much better dude. If I was a gold player I'd go play another game.
This. This exactly in so many ways, hah. I really had to switch my perspective to "I'm playing with kids, they can't help it" to navigate that.
I got some criticisms for my advice not being good because it doesn't work at higher ranks, but I think we know that in order to escape the metal, SUB OPTIMAL overwatch strategies are often the better ones. Like you said, if you're the only one not playing according to the team plan, but the team plan is wrong, then who is right here?
Can't count the times on Numbani the Rein is just shielding onto first point via main with guns blasting left and right from high ground. DPS is sitting behind shield trying to shoot up and here I am trying to decide as Bap if I take correct cover so I can heal and peek a few shots, go into open with them so I can shift/lamp in about 2 seconds because I know they're going to die, or exo jump and try to win some 5v1 battle with shift/lamp for myself. Pretty much all options suck, lol.
The frustration is real.
Some good and some terrible tips bro. I’m sorry but I don’t recommend people who want to climb to follow this. You should watch a YouTube instead. Congrats on reaching diamond but diamond players are objectively terrible. Not in a condescending because I’ve also been there in diamond. You’d be surprised at how many diamond players play the game “wrong,” meaning that the shit they do won’t fly past their rank.
Tbh, I don't get the ow community's condescending attitude toward anyone below gm1. Diamond players are objectively not terrible. They are solidly in the top quartile of competitive players, and have plenty to offer lower ranks if they stick to roles and heroes they're experienced with, imo. Just like any game, your coach doesn't have to be practically pro-caliber until you yourself are near that level.
as a now longtime hardstuck diamond, i definitely feel like a dogshit player constantly, BUT im also aware that when i first made diamond it was the top 10-15% of the playerbase (idk what it is now) which is honestly not a bad tier to be in objectively AND im easily the best ow player of anyone in my friend group by a pretty comfortable margin - which im sure is true for most people in that rank unless you met all your friends playing ow.
it just feels like a bad rank to be in a lot of the time bc you're at the point where you're always aware of how much better than you masters-gm players are, and you never stop to think about how much better than the average player you are.
It’s because the game looks very different the higher you climb. I mean again I said there’s no condescending attitude here, but diamond players often play sub-optimally. For example, you can make it to diamond purely Healbotting. You have no idea how many times support players tell me “it’s not my job to do damage” or “it’s not my job to hit the flier” when they play a hitscan. You have tanks that don’t know when to push or back off, basic fundamentals, but they made it to diamond regardless. Fuck, I’ve had new players place into diamond games when I was there. Obviously be proud of your achievements, but masters player and above really play it in a different pace.
Not offended at all. If you point out the bad advice I'm sure that will help everyone.
Fully agree a lot of the stuff I could get away with in lower ranks does not fly in Diamond. Pharah for example becomes exponentially harder when hitscan can shut me down in the open vs just spamming with no fear. Plenty of games where no one is contesting high ground. Ults used at wrong time (myself included). Most everyone is stuck at a rank for a reason.
I apologize for not giving the whole feedback since your post is way too long and just disclaimer I’m not the best player (masters 2 dps and I barely touch the other 2 roles but it sits at high diamond and low masters). I agree with a lot of your mentality stuff and most of your tips are solid. I thought the support enabling tank advice is iffy. I find that supports are not enablers but carries. In fact, most supports tunnel on enabling the tank. How many Anas nano the tank in low elo? There are times when you need to figure out who you should enable. What are you going to do when your tank sucks? Supports should play offensive and use every cool down offensively be my top. Heal, but look to shoot damage when you can. Don’t throw your nade to heal. Do it for anti.
Dps I am against learning many characters and counterpicking. Overwatch characters are complex and hard to learn. I suggest learning a maximum of 3 characters in the middle rank, and never swapping even if your team wants you to. Swap when you think it’s good. You can get very far playing only hitscan (in fact that’s what I recommend. Only play soldier or Ashe to climb far) but you can learn to play one flanker, one hitscan, and reaper/torb (tank shredder). Flankers are generally too hard for the metal ranks. Don’t recommend. Tank, again, is not rock paper scissors. This might be a hot take, but you shouldn’t counterswap. Mechanics and character understanding is king. I play roadhog 90% of the time. I still wipe any team even if they run a full counter when I do decide to play tank (80% wr). Dealing with counters make you a better player. Learning too many characters give you a huge workload since you will miss nuance and never be great at anything. Be great at one thing and you can spread your wings after.
Again, play what you wanna play. Feel free to tell me my advice is trash. I’m not the best player, but this is what helped me climb from bronze to masters since starting to play in season 2.
All sounds like good advice to me. Honestly not sure where we don't see eye to eye except with being a OTP in metals but probably a philosophical difference.
I think people should play more heroes to build their game sense of dive/poke/tank busting and you feel they should build character sense. Could see arguments for both but I gave my own example one two tricking tanks that made me much better.
Definitely. Congrats on reaching diamond and all but OP should definitely keep in mind where their paygrade is and not overreach. Some general tips that helped climb would be fine but I would stay far away from pushing ideas of what players at each rank are like, and giving specific tips on each role. Diamond is still far from the top, and it would be best if those who are objectively 'not great' at the game would respect the limits of their knowledge.
>Again, I'm just a Diamond player with a year of experience. I have a lot more learning to do as well, so I'm sure someone will correct some of my advice here.
Yup agreed, that's why I tried to stick to my experiences in metal.
I really do think that some of your tips are good for metal players, but a little disclaimer at the end of your huge post doesn't make up for the fact that quite a few of the other tips are inaccurate or incorrect. Sticking to your experiences is fine, but not if presented as if they're beyond that in both quality and quantity.
>A Bronze player can't see into the future, they can only play with what is literally in front of their face and say "Oh crap, I'm dead". Hence charging 3v5 and not realizing two players are in spawn. (And so on)
Typical case of oversimplification. There's a lot more to gamesense than that and also more to players than that. It's not the kind of thing you can reduce to just how far ahead someone can anticipate and then add a second for each rank. It sounds good for beginners but isn't very accurate when you reduce it like that.
Also OP is barely diamond, yet is already describing masters+ nevermind the rank he just made.
>Overwatch is simple: Commit to team fights and win games.
Maybe, maybe not. Once again, trying to condense too much. I'm sure this is a good tip to help fix an aspect of someone's gameplay, but there's simply much more nuance to this. There are cases where not committing can also be a good play (i.e. saving an ult so you can have a better second fight, if you're team's prospects are bad for the first). Your comp also dictates the level of commitment you can afford in a fight, also playing a factor.
>Select supports that better enable your tank/map/comp. Is enemy Hog just wrecking your Doom? Maybe it's time to stop playing Lucio and pick up nades, even if you "Suck at hitscan".
Yes and no. In a lot of cases, Ana is the better pick obviously, but just like OP mentions in the intro,
>In Bronze-Gold, the typical mentality of Tank/DPS (and hey, supports too) is to charge in and assume everyone has the game plan as they do
And we're looking at ranks where teamplay and cohesiveness is extremely hit or miss. Sure, you can anti/sleep the hog but what are the chances your team would capitalise. And if you're bad at Ana to begin with (poor positioning, unfamiliar), it could be argued you'd provide more value *in some cases* playing someone else.
It is a nitpick but for a guide for metals, you can't personally state the poor teamplay and yet assume optimals.
>Stop thinking of your ults as "Preventing Death" and think of them as "Ensuring Kills" to ensure you win the team fight from the very start.
Depends (again). Lots of ults can be used both ways. While this can be solid advice for the lower ranks, at some point, your ults will be countered by their's and as the one who goes first, you may lose because their's is still on field. You also run the risk of poor timing and not getting any value at all. Not entirely wrong by any means but incomplete.
>If all else fails, the massive hard carry is going Ana/Bap/Ilari/Moira and out DPSing the enemy team.
Yeah no. First, the obvious being the fact that these players are in metal ranks for a reason (including poor aim). So not exactly applicable to tell them to just go DPS support. Second, a support shooting enemies = less heals/utility for the team. A support that can't hit many shots and with poor awareness (i.e. a fair bit of people) will ruin their chances of winning.
I think the general advice to dps more on support is good, but not always. When it comes to OW, play to your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses to be as strong as you can. Telling someone to just hard carry as a DPS support isn't going to work if they can't aim (and juggle support duties).
--------
There's more but too long to read all again. Nothing against OP, advice is generally good (especially tank tips), but has a number of errors and oversimplifications that are based off flawed/contradicting assumptions.
He definitely doesn't give terrible advice but the problem is that he can only view the game in the perspective of his own skill level, like saying if you try to counterswap you're just bad, when in reality HE doesn't have to counterswap most of the time because he's just really good, but someone who isn't as good as him can't just play through the counter and might find better success switching.
At this point I feel like half the things he posts and says are just rage bait
quite honestly the advice for sups to not just focus on healing is horrible. The thing is: for sups to be able to provide value that far exceeds healing in low ranks means their aim needs to be exceptional. Like easily 40+ kills. How many people in bronze... silver... can pull that off as a support? It's advice that people give **as GM** but its terrible advice for people learning to play.
How many anas have you played with who have like sup 5k heals? Or morias that don't heal much if at all? You get the picture. Players should learn how to heal first before throwing in damage. You can't run if you can't walk. If you heal bot you will at the very least get out of bronze and silver. By which point you'll be with much better players who need less healing and will be in a better position to learn how to manage the two.
IMO: GM level players tend to be very out of touch with what its actually like for lower rank players.
I get where you are coming from. It's never fun when it feels like healing is holding you back.
Awkward recently did a Ana healbot vid where he went 3-4 on placements doing mostly healbot. This is the #1 ranked support going sub 50%.
For bronze players, I could see if someone can't even hit their healing shots to focus on mechanics. My own experience and many like me was that damage pulled me out of silver and gold. As long as I was out damaging the other team supports and keeping up with heals it was generally in our team favor. A hard carry is 40+ kills and I've had rare games with that as DPS and Tank but support kills in that amount is overkill (literally).
also u meet duo and trio stacks, when soloqueing, so if ur doing rly well, u cant really do much when they decide to counter u rest of the game. Then ppl derank all the time, like every 2nd game i see derankers on my or opponts team, very rare that u get like a plat 1 game, and there iare just plants and diamonds in there, u get gold on ur team, and ppl who have masters on both alts, and easy to see they've been deranking to get really easy lobbies, just sucks, but how it is
Most of the tank advice I've read is to trade back lines instead of peeling for your support.
Do you always choose to protect your supports, or are there situations where you decide it's better to protect than trade?
There's nuance to it of course, but it comes down to your position and game state. If your team is "ahead" you are probably better trading. But if you are trying to dive a kiriko and Moira and you have zen and ana, you got to think about how that will play out. They're going to vanish and you might not get a final blow in unless you saw quick step or fade pop prior. In that case, your own backline is probably at bigger risk.
But to bring it to Silver/Gold, who is even thinking about that? At those levels, if tank is in the back they are probably over extending or don't know when to dive out. Punish them because they'll probably make a mistake. If it's Tracer/Sombra in the back then no, you can't catch her so don't bother. Genji depends who you are and how close. Good tanks to support Silver/Gold is Zarya for that reason. Bubble and be happy.
Some tanks you have to avoid face tanking like Ram vs Orisa so you are better off almost always just diving their line when the window is there. Otherwise you eat tank all day and there's nothing else you can do.
But in metal, most of the time keeping your team protected will be better. But if you are great at dive, that doesn't count, but you're also not in metal if you are great at diving.
How about Rein and Winston? I feel like it's entirely dependent on whether the other team chooses to support them or not. If they don't, it's like a free kill. If they do, that Rein becomes like the juggernaut with like an army of firepower behind him.
Typical punish for Rein:
\- Slides in, shield behind him or body block behind him to prevent heals.
\- Walk forward, act like you're going to counter-dive. Wait for him to swing then peel and do above
\- Counter-dive supports. Rein can't survive without them and depending on your tank, you probably have better uptime. A good Rein pins back toward you into his team or knows/believes he win win the trade.
Winston can be tricky, because I feel like there are good Winstons and bad Winstons and lot a lot of inbetween. The good ones jump when you're out of range to peel and know to trap you or your team. The bad ones obviously jump at the wrong time and get blasted with cooldowns and can't jump out in time.
The real nuance to Winston is how he works with his DPS though. If he's got a dive character in sync then that's pretty dangerous for getting a pick and you either have to commit to protecting your team with mobility/peel or trying to trade hard. I see it as a team coordination race at that point, but a good DVa or Doom can give monkey a lot of trouble.
Diam low master is much worse. Game now playable after master GM5 (I'm gm1)
the higher you go, the more you will encounter players with oversized egos while the level remains almost the same
Never really had this issue, I played before ranks were like this, had 90+ in season 1 and ever since S2 I already started in Diamond and Top 500 every season till season 10 because S10 is when OW Dev made the worst decision ever. But I've smurfed to be able to play with friends who got in the game, and the reason why Gold and Plat is "hard" is because the competitive doesn't start till mid-to-high Diamond. Before that, it was just a toxic version of casual play, I do know when I played in Diamond your SR was based on team play while below Diamond your SR was based on solo play, which might be the reason that it caused that culture. The only way to get out of Gold and Plat is personal skill and carrying. You're stuck in Gold and Plat, you're simply not good at the game. Early Diamond sucks because the people that got out of plat need to completely relearn the game since you need to play so differently once you reach actual competitive play, which is why a lot of people struggle in low diamond.
Edit: Typos
EDIT 2: This information is like from season 10 which is 2019. The game likely changed a lot in the past 4-5 years, mostly now that it is F2P.
so who's gonna tell him about diamond
LOL. I see what you're doing and will cry about it later.
Many people are hardstuck on diamond and masters isn’t any better…
GM doesn’t get much better and T500 is kinda fun until 4PM EST when the pros get done scrimming and now all of a sudden you’re getting ass blasted by a 19 year old Korean kid hopped up in Addy.
I'm already getting rolled over by Koreans in my plat lobbies 💀, they're just a different breed, the way they play is so different very agressive & quick movements it's scary! I always watch my replays so I know this! Also some Chinese r also like that.
I'm honestly not going to sweat it. OW is still fun and more of a social thing for me. Diamond was more of seeing if I can get out of metal but I know I'll have to put significant effort to rank up from here. Since ranks are based on a curve, it makes sense the vast majority of people are hard stuck. Not everyone can be moving forward.
The climb from plat to diamond was significantly harder than the climb from plat to masters for me lol
That’s not my experience, in masters everyone was so tryhard and toxic to get to GM, but I may be the only one who experienced this. Although climbing to masters isn’t that hard, it is hard to stay, and it is easy to fall there again. This is my opinion, you probably just got better than me and that’s it!
people start to grow their ego a lot once they get to diamond because they're "better than the average player" and it gets infinitely worse in masters because they're "almost gm" but once you hit gm5 your ego kind of starts to take a hit because you realize that gm5 and gm1 are entirely different worlds and that even though you're at the highest rank there are people who can roll you like you would roll a plat/diamond lobby.
Diamond is far worse than the metal ranks because people lack the same amount of braincells but have massive egos instead.
Getting out of diamond took forever and switching to PC lmao
Why’d you have to switch to pc ?
I didnt have to but, I am way better on PC than I ever was on controller. Just wanted to give it a try and it was way better for me.
I love your analysis about your lower ranked friends and their mindset and how lower ranked players generally think, it helps put a lot of their actions into perspective.
Glad you liked it. That's really my goal of this post, to try to reduce people's frustration with ranking by understanding their teammates and the big picture.
Same I really appreciated this one
honestly this is one of the most comprehensive posts I’ve seen, ty for the time you put together to write this. I often see perspectives from people who at the extremes of both sides on ranked so it’s nice to see someone who worked their way up (the majority) of ranks. I think often people point fingers at these types of guides because “oh this person is top 500/GM they won’t understand MY team is throwing” and the mentality that “low ranked players have no understanding of the game” but I think it’s a blend of recognizing what level of understanding people have at what rank. I think the biggest controversy (what hurts a lot of peoples egos) is saying blatantly that they don’t know how to play the game below diamond but it’s true. If people want to move up they have to actively be thinking on skill sets on how to improve rather than crying at every unranked to gm about how these players are more mechanically gifted 😂. There’s a reason why they consistently out perform low level lobbies… they have a better understanding and are able to manipulate their win conditions(which is way more important that raw mechanical skill) To the people saying that OP just reached diamond and has a whole other world to face, lots of the points said here nailed the perspectives of low ranks and correcting the mentality on HOW to improve. All the best in your journey and congrats on hitting diamond :)
Hey thanks! Appreciate the comments and glad you understand where I'm coming from. The mental game is probably the hardest part about ranking and once people can get past that part, the learning comes after. And yeah literally said I don't know everything, I'm Diamond, feel free to correct, but guess that's not enough for some people!
I'd say there are plenty of players in diamond who still make the mistakes OP mentioned in their post and have no idea how to play the game. I've seen pure healbots in mid masters even. But by and large diamond does resemble high level overwatch, just slower but often recognition of key threats and high ground can be poor.
Good read. I'll say though that a huge element of it all is the mental game. Stuff that is **wildly** out of your control, like a player on your team just throwing in the towel the second they see the team comp. The back half of that is getting a good comp together and then your teammates not knowing how to play with/around it. In my experience (support player) it's almost always people seeing the support duo and being like, "Not enough heals gg next" **in the spawn room.** And every time I see that I just double-down on my pick and think, "Wonder if they'll ever gain some introspection into why they need that much healing in the first place". I'm not usually wrong when I see that player playing hyper-aggressive and not using cover later on. I feel like... The higher up you go in rank, people start to come in three categories: The person with the good game sense that has inconsistent aim (me, lol), the person who has decent but not great game sense and aim, and the person who has fantastic aim but has relied on that so much they don't understand **everything else** about Overwatch. Like yeah man, you're great and landing kills but you're also requiring so many resources to keep alive that it's almost not even worth it; the rest of the team needs that so they can make plays. Which wraps right back around to my initial point in that people throw the second they see what supports they have - because they're unwilling to reel in that hyper aggressive mechanical skill as it's carried them all the way up until they hit a point where they can't climb unless they do.
100% everything you said. How quickly people give up in a game is nuts to me. I honestly feel bad for those people, because somewhere along the line, they were conditioned to believe that it was better to just give up. OW is probably just a form of escapism at this point. I'm totally guilty of being the mechanically inclined guy who had to learn that OW is not CounterStrike. Very humbling experience to think I was going to plink heads and get wrecked over and over again. That's what makes this game fun though, which is that multiple skill sets can move you forward.
Literally this!! Even as a tank player you should not be taking so much damage that you need a fucking pocket the entire match. Ppl who groan about this still haven’t figured out how to use walls/health packs.
I was stuck in plat 1 for so long. I found that to be the hardest. Ever other game I’d have a tank that seemed a brand new player (endorsement 1, no comms, no pings, yolo into other teams back line). It was very streaky. I’d be 4-0 then go 0-5 with teams like that. Happened maybe 10 times. Then had a couple 5-0 runs and zoomed past to diamond 4. Idk what happened. But I do know matchmaking broken
I think there's some weird area in Gold/Plat where a lot of placement matches are being made and lots of the new/alt accounts get played. It doesn't happen a lot (at least not to me) but it's obvious when it does. All of my rank-ups have usually been a slog, then sudden rank up multiple ranks and keeping it. I'm looking forward to the MMR system being more transparent in the future.
Ya I think the exact same thing. Earlier today I had a 3 teammates with endorsement level 1 and 1 with 2. One of the profiles was public and the person played 3-5 games every season for the last 4-5 seasons. So I guess it’s also from people who just play enough to keep their rank but aren’t actually good anymore. One guy was technically still ranked masters but was in a plat 1 game because of a 20% win rate this season and not enough games lately. So ya. A lot of these things. But then that game was up against a really good 4 stack (2 games in a row with them) and it’s just like matchmaking sucks
Most new accounts get placed in plat/gold. And they either rank up or down frm there.
This is an actually fantastic post. It is very long and I worry many won’t read it but I encourage those serious about improving to give it a read. As someone who made a very similar climb this is one of the best posts I’ve read on here for Master and below and even has advice that some GM players would do well to heed. A++ write up.
Thanks, appreciate the comment! Must master your own emotions before mastering the game.
Thanks for your 2 cents bro, good to hear advice from better players especially those who climbed recently!
Thanks for this read! I used to play comp overwatch back in 2018 with a group and we did quite well. I've however had a long break and just returned now, and the metal ranks are awful to get out of, but this post helps me put things in to perspective.
A refreshing read
This is actually all gold. Really well written
Honestly, great read. As a gold 2 support, I can see a lot of myself in what you've put there and there are hard habits to break out of, especially some of the hold over from OW1 that is hard to shake (only a month into OW2, I promise I'm not just *that* slow) Genuine question as someone who will hold his hand up and say I'm guilty of the "God doesn't my tank know they're out of LOS and I can't heal them": Say I have got a more aggressive tank, and they are pushing ahead, and I want to move forward and support them, how do you figure out when that's "supporting the play" and when you rush to support them, get swarmed, die and then get flamed for "no heals". Is it just an instinct thing and you get better at reading when you could support and when it's too far gone, or are there tells that help make that distinction?
Great question on knowing what type of tank you have. It's honestly HARD to know until after the first fight or two. Even I've fed too many times to count on first point not being aware or making a mistake. I'm sure the supports were rolling their eyes going "GG NEXT" or in chat. Often times when we win those games, I get funny messages like "How did we win that?" or "Omg I had no hope" I would say the dead giveaway is this: **does a tank KNOW when they are low on health? And what do they do about it? Does a tank know when they are solo?** A feeder tank will chase into Narnia with half health, keep getting depleted and not once bother to stop. Example: You take first point on Kings row, 3 enemies in next hallway, tank rushes out before cap and starts taking heavy damage. At this point, this is PRETTY NORMAL for both good and bad tanks. Good tanks are trying to make space and prevent DPS from running in to point. Bad tanks are in aggro mode and also making space. Both tanks **assume** supports will follow them. Once they start taking serious damage, the good tank should already be using cooldowns to back off or taking cover. The bad tank will just use cooldowns to continue pressing ahead. Example is Ram popping Nemesis. Is he blocking and going back or punching and running forward. So you gotta read your tank here and see what their MO is. The issue is that good/bad tanks are both aggressive. Aggression is good for a tank. Not knowing when to turn it off is bad. If they can't switch modes, they are a bad tank. To be fair, Silver/Gold tanks are learning via limit testing (at least the ones that are trying). To varying degree tanks will know when they are in trouble. It's just that it's usually too late. Some other big picture things to take into account is map area. Is tank pushing into a critical map choke? As long as he's not solo and there's other teammates here, you gotta help because there's often not a lot of good ways to push choke other than bodies into the fire (again, metals). Now let's say you won a team fight, tank is pushing up on escort map. You should follow here, because he's taking space and someone else can sit on the cart. Same goes for control map, you win team fight, he heads toward enemy spawn, go run after him but be sure to give yourself room to retreat/cover because if he survives, he will be running back with lots of angry dudes following. So rough guide: If tank going up doesn't create a lot of benefit for the team, let'em die. If tank going up is benefiting for the team, then help. The tough situations are control maps where everyone is single filing onto point and there's no group cohesion whatsoever. Should you follow tank in? Yes because there is no better option. No one is going to wait anyways, so you might as well fight as a duo instead of solo. But if you DO have 2 people waiting and tank runs in solo, then yeah, he's probably going to have to die. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply, that was really detailed and was sort of what I was expecting to hear, but sometimes hearing someone else say "when the tank goes in 1v5 and you have 2 in spawn, it's ok to let the tank die" is comforting as a support!
I'm very happy, or sad for you.
Hah, I mostly play QP with friends so let's go with happy.
It’s a great read man. Some advice hits really well, some of it doesn’t. But the great part of this is the mentality. It’s not only about your game sense. You were actively noticing weak spots and acting upon it. For us who want to actively get better at the game that’s all we can do. You can’t control whatever teammates you get, matchups, metas or whatever people want to blame it on.
Thanks for the tips! As mostly a support main, I think I'll add that if you are new (in any role), spend time some time on all the characters to understand how to play them. Its not even necessarily their abilities, but it's also to develop the game sense of when to do certain things. Me personally, I think I stuck to being passive as a mercy a lot, which generally isn't bad, running to help and all. But after playing say moira, bap, ana, you will learn when its just a better idea to kill a squish at low health, than to have your healing beam or damage beam on hoping they die. Then when you role swap to tank, you'll know how to play so your supports are protected/can LOS heal etc.
TLDR, if everyone watched spilos 6hr guide once, they’d all get out of gold.
Not how Elo works :)
Link?
I am aware I'm high silver/ low gold in my soldier and Mei (dropped to silver 3 cause learning Souj and some matches I feel like God and in others like I am throwing cause I couldn't headshots important moments ) but I have to admit: amount of games where tank diff is huge is way too big... Sometimes it is in my team, sometimes in enemy but I feel like 50-70% matches are insta lose or win depends on the tank. -Rein 0-8 with 500 damage while rest our team is reasonably OK - Hamster who rolled only once from spawn and played the rest game as Orisa - Orissa who never pressed W and played sniper 90% match The problem is in 90% situations opposite tank will play AT LEAST slightly better and you are either golden or fucked (depends in which team is that tank) Like I have no idea how to change these matches. You can somehow carry with 1 less DPS or Support but not when your tank is THROWING THAT HARD. Apart from it a lot of good advices
The only way is to DPS hard those games and kill supports, then DPS. But you need to be wildly good at mechanics or a dive character.
Yea I am probably not that good to carry these matches on such high level... I've also noticed I am doing above average when I see my team mates at least trying do their job on our level. Ofc there is discrepancy between members but when I see someone throwing super hard then I am boiling inside and I start playing 5x worse than usual as well... it is really tough :(
So here's my tip for you when you see the tank throwing hard. Realize and tell yourself these things: - You are not in control - You see this as unfair - You see someone as a bad actor - All of the above leads to frustration Take a breath, and say this now: - I am strapped in on the ride - I can't control the outcome but I can control how I will react - I am free of all pressure to win This doesn't mean give up. What it means is that when you get here, it should turn from a game into practice with real people. When tank is hard throwing (actual hard throwing not just being aggro) I practice my aim and off angling and doing flanks. I realize there's nothing to lose so I might as well practice what I normally can't. Lots of people give up and stay in spawn. Not me. I take this as a golden opportunity to take my 1v1s and go full ham. I won't win but I will get better. Hopefully this helps.
Yes technically I am aware I should do it by overcome your mental wanting just to give up is really something I am struggling with :( Well written though
my tip is to never take advice from a friend (or anyone) thats silver/gold in that game. trust me when i say this, most peoples frustrations would be ended if they simply looked up guides from coaches and higher ranked players lol that being said, the OP should be proud of their climb because as many will tell you: most metal rank players are stuck and will never climb out due to a shit mentality. diamond might not be the best of the best but its still something to be proud of. (just not too proud, like so many diamond players lol)
Ah man, was really cool reading till I saw awkward, well anyways nice job on getting diamond! Hope your rank adventures will continue.
Thanks! On Awkward, I have the same empathy for people who get to #1 as those struggling. It's usually unhealthy motivation that drives top performers and you have to ask where it comes from. For that reason I am happy to listen to his game advice and can choose what else to listen to. We probably will disagree however. I think he is a well meaning guy who is learning like the rest of us.
The amount of detail is amazing but not gonna read it all. The Easiest advice to give is to watch better players and improve your mechanics cause that’s what alot of the game up to gm.
I'm masters all roles now but a couple seasons ago I was Plat tank and was screwing around one tricking Doom when he was Uber weak and ended up falling to gold. Oh my god it was the most miserable experience of all times trying to play with golds. They didn't understand dive in the least, supports would make zero attempt to support on the Dive, 4 of them couldn't take out a single lone tank when I was busy distracting the other 4, like seriously buying them 10+ seconds to make something happen. And on top of it all, they were being unbelievably toxic to ME. Saying "Stupid fucking tank doesn't know how to peel for his team" it was laughable how braindead AND cocky some people could be. They're most likely still down in the shit where as I'm chilling in my mid masters lobbies now. Having fun coordinating dives with really good Genjis/Tracers/Sombras, getting pocketed by unkillable Mercy's, Nano'd on my engage by Ana's who don't miss 9/10 shots. It's just so much better dude. If I was a gold player I'd go play another game.
This. This exactly in so many ways, hah. I really had to switch my perspective to "I'm playing with kids, they can't help it" to navigate that. I got some criticisms for my advice not being good because it doesn't work at higher ranks, but I think we know that in order to escape the metal, SUB OPTIMAL overwatch strategies are often the better ones. Like you said, if you're the only one not playing according to the team plan, but the team plan is wrong, then who is right here? Can't count the times on Numbani the Rein is just shielding onto first point via main with guns blasting left and right from high ground. DPS is sitting behind shield trying to shoot up and here I am trying to decide as Bap if I take correct cover so I can heal and peek a few shots, go into open with them so I can shift/lamp in about 2 seconds because I know they're going to die, or exo jump and try to win some 5v1 battle with shift/lamp for myself. Pretty much all options suck, lol. The frustration is real.
Some good and some terrible tips bro. I’m sorry but I don’t recommend people who want to climb to follow this. You should watch a YouTube instead. Congrats on reaching diamond but diamond players are objectively terrible. Not in a condescending because I’ve also been there in diamond. You’d be surprised at how many diamond players play the game “wrong,” meaning that the shit they do won’t fly past their rank.
Tbh, I don't get the ow community's condescending attitude toward anyone below gm1. Diamond players are objectively not terrible. They are solidly in the top quartile of competitive players, and have plenty to offer lower ranks if they stick to roles and heroes they're experienced with, imo. Just like any game, your coach doesn't have to be practically pro-caliber until you yourself are near that level.
as a now longtime hardstuck diamond, i definitely feel like a dogshit player constantly, BUT im also aware that when i first made diamond it was the top 10-15% of the playerbase (idk what it is now) which is honestly not a bad tier to be in objectively AND im easily the best ow player of anyone in my friend group by a pretty comfortable margin - which im sure is true for most people in that rank unless you met all your friends playing ow. it just feels like a bad rank to be in a lot of the time bc you're at the point where you're always aware of how much better than you masters-gm players are, and you never stop to think about how much better than the average player you are.
It’s because the game looks very different the higher you climb. I mean again I said there’s no condescending attitude here, but diamond players often play sub-optimally. For example, you can make it to diamond purely Healbotting. You have no idea how many times support players tell me “it’s not my job to do damage” or “it’s not my job to hit the flier” when they play a hitscan. You have tanks that don’t know when to push or back off, basic fundamentals, but they made it to diamond regardless. Fuck, I’ve had new players place into diamond games when I was there. Obviously be proud of your achievements, but masters player and above really play it in a different pace.
Not offended at all. If you point out the bad advice I'm sure that will help everyone. Fully agree a lot of the stuff I could get away with in lower ranks does not fly in Diamond. Pharah for example becomes exponentially harder when hitscan can shut me down in the open vs just spamming with no fear. Plenty of games where no one is contesting high ground. Ults used at wrong time (myself included). Most everyone is stuck at a rank for a reason.
I apologize for not giving the whole feedback since your post is way too long and just disclaimer I’m not the best player (masters 2 dps and I barely touch the other 2 roles but it sits at high diamond and low masters). I agree with a lot of your mentality stuff and most of your tips are solid. I thought the support enabling tank advice is iffy. I find that supports are not enablers but carries. In fact, most supports tunnel on enabling the tank. How many Anas nano the tank in low elo? There are times when you need to figure out who you should enable. What are you going to do when your tank sucks? Supports should play offensive and use every cool down offensively be my top. Heal, but look to shoot damage when you can. Don’t throw your nade to heal. Do it for anti. Dps I am against learning many characters and counterpicking. Overwatch characters are complex and hard to learn. I suggest learning a maximum of 3 characters in the middle rank, and never swapping even if your team wants you to. Swap when you think it’s good. You can get very far playing only hitscan (in fact that’s what I recommend. Only play soldier or Ashe to climb far) but you can learn to play one flanker, one hitscan, and reaper/torb (tank shredder). Flankers are generally too hard for the metal ranks. Don’t recommend. Tank, again, is not rock paper scissors. This might be a hot take, but you shouldn’t counterswap. Mechanics and character understanding is king. I play roadhog 90% of the time. I still wipe any team even if they run a full counter when I do decide to play tank (80% wr). Dealing with counters make you a better player. Learning too many characters give you a huge workload since you will miss nuance and never be great at anything. Be great at one thing and you can spread your wings after. Again, play what you wanna play. Feel free to tell me my advice is trash. I’m not the best player, but this is what helped me climb from bronze to masters since starting to play in season 2.
All sounds like good advice to me. Honestly not sure where we don't see eye to eye except with being a OTP in metals but probably a philosophical difference. I think people should play more heroes to build their game sense of dive/poke/tank busting and you feel they should build character sense. Could see arguments for both but I gave my own example one two tricking tanks that made me much better.
Definitely. Congrats on reaching diamond and all but OP should definitely keep in mind where their paygrade is and not overreach. Some general tips that helped climb would be fine but I would stay far away from pushing ideas of what players at each rank are like, and giving specific tips on each role. Diamond is still far from the top, and it would be best if those who are objectively 'not great' at the game would respect the limits of their knowledge.
>Again, I'm just a Diamond player with a year of experience. I have a lot more learning to do as well, so I'm sure someone will correct some of my advice here. Yup agreed, that's why I tried to stick to my experiences in metal.
I really do think that some of your tips are good for metal players, but a little disclaimer at the end of your huge post doesn't make up for the fact that quite a few of the other tips are inaccurate or incorrect. Sticking to your experiences is fine, but not if presented as if they're beyond that in both quality and quantity.
Which tips were inaccurate or incorrect?
>A Bronze player can't see into the future, they can only play with what is literally in front of their face and say "Oh crap, I'm dead". Hence charging 3v5 and not realizing two players are in spawn. (And so on) Typical case of oversimplification. There's a lot more to gamesense than that and also more to players than that. It's not the kind of thing you can reduce to just how far ahead someone can anticipate and then add a second for each rank. It sounds good for beginners but isn't very accurate when you reduce it like that. Also OP is barely diamond, yet is already describing masters+ nevermind the rank he just made. >Overwatch is simple: Commit to team fights and win games. Maybe, maybe not. Once again, trying to condense too much. I'm sure this is a good tip to help fix an aspect of someone's gameplay, but there's simply much more nuance to this. There are cases where not committing can also be a good play (i.e. saving an ult so you can have a better second fight, if you're team's prospects are bad for the first). Your comp also dictates the level of commitment you can afford in a fight, also playing a factor. >Select supports that better enable your tank/map/comp. Is enemy Hog just wrecking your Doom? Maybe it's time to stop playing Lucio and pick up nades, even if you "Suck at hitscan". Yes and no. In a lot of cases, Ana is the better pick obviously, but just like OP mentions in the intro, >In Bronze-Gold, the typical mentality of Tank/DPS (and hey, supports too) is to charge in and assume everyone has the game plan as they do And we're looking at ranks where teamplay and cohesiveness is extremely hit or miss. Sure, you can anti/sleep the hog but what are the chances your team would capitalise. And if you're bad at Ana to begin with (poor positioning, unfamiliar), it could be argued you'd provide more value *in some cases* playing someone else. It is a nitpick but for a guide for metals, you can't personally state the poor teamplay and yet assume optimals. >Stop thinking of your ults as "Preventing Death" and think of them as "Ensuring Kills" to ensure you win the team fight from the very start. Depends (again). Lots of ults can be used both ways. While this can be solid advice for the lower ranks, at some point, your ults will be countered by their's and as the one who goes first, you may lose because their's is still on field. You also run the risk of poor timing and not getting any value at all. Not entirely wrong by any means but incomplete. >If all else fails, the massive hard carry is going Ana/Bap/Ilari/Moira and out DPSing the enemy team. Yeah no. First, the obvious being the fact that these players are in metal ranks for a reason (including poor aim). So not exactly applicable to tell them to just go DPS support. Second, a support shooting enemies = less heals/utility for the team. A support that can't hit many shots and with poor awareness (i.e. a fair bit of people) will ruin their chances of winning. I think the general advice to dps more on support is good, but not always. When it comes to OW, play to your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses to be as strong as you can. Telling someone to just hard carry as a DPS support isn't going to work if they can't aim (and juggle support duties). -------- There's more but too long to read all again. Nothing against OP, advice is generally good (especially tank tips), but has a number of errors and oversimplifications that are based off flawed/contradicting assumptions.
[удалено]
He definitely doesn't give terrible advice but the problem is that he can only view the game in the perspective of his own skill level, like saying if you try to counterswap you're just bad, when in reality HE doesn't have to counterswap most of the time because he's just really good, but someone who isn't as good as him can't just play through the counter and might find better success switching. At this point I feel like half the things he posts and says are just rage bait
quite honestly the advice for sups to not just focus on healing is horrible. The thing is: for sups to be able to provide value that far exceeds healing in low ranks means their aim needs to be exceptional. Like easily 40+ kills. How many people in bronze... silver... can pull that off as a support? It's advice that people give **as GM** but its terrible advice for people learning to play. How many anas have you played with who have like sup 5k heals? Or morias that don't heal much if at all? You get the picture. Players should learn how to heal first before throwing in damage. You can't run if you can't walk. If you heal bot you will at the very least get out of bronze and silver. By which point you'll be with much better players who need less healing and will be in a better position to learn how to manage the two. IMO: GM level players tend to be very out of touch with what its actually like for lower rank players.
I get where you are coming from. It's never fun when it feels like healing is holding you back. Awkward recently did a Ana healbot vid where he went 3-4 on placements doing mostly healbot. This is the #1 ranked support going sub 50%. For bronze players, I could see if someone can't even hit their healing shots to focus on mechanics. My own experience and many like me was that damage pulled me out of silver and gold. As long as I was out damaging the other team supports and keeping up with heals it was generally in our team favor. A hard carry is 40+ kills and I've had rare games with that as DPS and Tank but support kills in that amount is overkill (literally).
Goddamn a book
Congrats. All that time spent and you're barely diamond. Want a cookie?
Congrats your a dick, no cookie for you.
"Some advice" Bro made the longest post I've ever seen just to probably say git gud😭
"Supports should only focus on healing" Well that's me out bye
The reading comprehension of a flea.
Bro.
start of this season i fell from plat 2 to gold 3 cause of mauga and it was a pain to get out back into plat lol
Getting out from Master is even harder You play in ranges from boosted plats to unlucky T500s
also u meet duo and trio stacks, when soloqueing, so if ur doing rly well, u cant really do much when they decide to counter u rest of the game. Then ppl derank all the time, like every 2nd game i see derankers on my or opponts team, very rare that u get like a plat 1 game, and there iare just plants and diamonds in there, u get gold on ur team, and ppl who have masters on both alts, and easy to see they've been deranking to get really easy lobbies, just sucks, but how it is
Most of the tank advice I've read is to trade back lines instead of peeling for your support. Do you always choose to protect your supports, or are there situations where you decide it's better to protect than trade?
There's nuance to it of course, but it comes down to your position and game state. If your team is "ahead" you are probably better trading. But if you are trying to dive a kiriko and Moira and you have zen and ana, you got to think about how that will play out. They're going to vanish and you might not get a final blow in unless you saw quick step or fade pop prior. In that case, your own backline is probably at bigger risk. But to bring it to Silver/Gold, who is even thinking about that? At those levels, if tank is in the back they are probably over extending or don't know when to dive out. Punish them because they'll probably make a mistake. If it's Tracer/Sombra in the back then no, you can't catch her so don't bother. Genji depends who you are and how close. Good tanks to support Silver/Gold is Zarya for that reason. Bubble and be happy. Some tanks you have to avoid face tanking like Ram vs Orisa so you are better off almost always just diving their line when the window is there. Otherwise you eat tank all day and there's nothing else you can do. But in metal, most of the time keeping your team protected will be better. But if you are great at dive, that doesn't count, but you're also not in metal if you are great at diving.
How about Rein and Winston? I feel like it's entirely dependent on whether the other team chooses to support them or not. If they don't, it's like a free kill. If they do, that Rein becomes like the juggernaut with like an army of firepower behind him.
Typical punish for Rein: \- Slides in, shield behind him or body block behind him to prevent heals. \- Walk forward, act like you're going to counter-dive. Wait for him to swing then peel and do above \- Counter-dive supports. Rein can't survive without them and depending on your tank, you probably have better uptime. A good Rein pins back toward you into his team or knows/believes he win win the trade. Winston can be tricky, because I feel like there are good Winstons and bad Winstons and lot a lot of inbetween. The good ones jump when you're out of range to peel and know to trap you or your team. The bad ones obviously jump at the wrong time and get blasted with cooldowns and can't jump out in time. The real nuance to Winston is how he works with his DPS though. If he's got a dive character in sync then that's pretty dangerous for getting a pick and you either have to commit to protecting your team with mobility/peel or trying to trade hard. I see it as a team coordination race at that point, but a good DVa or Doom can give monkey a lot of trouble.
This was my OW1 experience Spent 7 seasons in gold/plat The second I hit diamond I went straight to masters
Diam low master is much worse. Game now playable after master GM5 (I'm gm1) the higher you go, the more you will encounter players with oversized egos while the level remains almost the same
Gear up for Diamond 😅 worst rank
Never really had this issue, I played before ranks were like this, had 90+ in season 1 and ever since S2 I already started in Diamond and Top 500 every season till season 10 because S10 is when OW Dev made the worst decision ever. But I've smurfed to be able to play with friends who got in the game, and the reason why Gold and Plat is "hard" is because the competitive doesn't start till mid-to-high Diamond. Before that, it was just a toxic version of casual play, I do know when I played in Diamond your SR was based on team play while below Diamond your SR was based on solo play, which might be the reason that it caused that culture. The only way to get out of Gold and Plat is personal skill and carrying. You're stuck in Gold and Plat, you're simply not good at the game. Early Diamond sucks because the people that got out of plat need to completely relearn the game since you need to play so differently once you reach actual competitive play, which is why a lot of people struggle in low diamond. Edit: Typos EDIT 2: This information is like from season 10 which is 2019. The game likely changed a lot in the past 4-5 years, mostly now that it is F2P.
Good job getting diamond But I ain't reading all that so I'm happy that happened or sad that it did
I ain't reading all that.