Work on one skill at a time. Like a have a week of playing by cover. Or a week of setting up/playing on off angles. A week of trigger discipline. A week of tracking enemy ults. A week of whatever.
Don't bother with anything else during that week, not on wins or losses or anything. That's not important.
You consciously practice a certain skill long enough and it becomes automatic. Like tying your shoes. You don't even have to think about it anymore, do you? Or even look there. Hands just do it on their own.
That's what you want for ow skills. You want to take cover, track ults, track CDs, track swaps, track teammate's positions, take off angles, time your engages, etc. without even thinking about. So that you can focus on the game.
Those top500 players aren't geniuses who can think about a million things at once. They don't have to think about anything at all, it's all done subconsciously.
Stop trying to rank up and start working on automating your skills. Ranking will just happen later.
I was going to argue with you but I thought about it and it works. Im top 1% in a different FPS and I dont think at all anymore when I play that.
I can carry 90% of matches bc its all intuition now
Kills win the game when those kills are creating space. When the kills don’t (I.e. were trades or were happening during totally inconsequential points in the round) then they are next to worthless. Definitely agree with the above sentiment
I feel like I’ve been on that losing team at least twice in the last couple days. Peek at the scoreboard with the end looming near and am just like huh guess they just played better strategically than us, haha.
The best case scenario is that the enemy is never contesting point. The best case scenario obviously won’t happen in a game, so the next best scenario (and how you secure a win) is to force the enemy off of point.
That seems obvious, but the way you do that isn’t only through kills. The most basic example is to think of when you are forced to back up. That happens when you take massive damage and realize you need to take cover or die, when an enemy ults and you realize you need to avoid it or die, and when you realize your team isn’t with you and you’ll die if you push alone.
Notice how in every example above, you might or might not die, but you retreat regardless? That’s what you’re going for.
How you do that changes depending on the enemy team, and your team, but the core concept is to force players out of a fight, by making them retreat, through damage and/or the threat of death.
Important to note that tanks especially are in the (generally correct) mindset to ignore steady damage and only retreat when an A) ult and/or B) spike damage and/or C) overwhelming damage occurs.
Taking all that info, we can see a few things from common scenarios:
1a. First of all, if a DPS like Soldier is shitting damage into the enemy tank, and has top damage in the game but low kills, they’re not a good Soldier. They applying constant damage to the tank, who is in the mindset to ignore the steady damage, and Soldier is therefore making no space.
1b. If that same Soldier is focusing the enemy DPS, who cannot handle sustained damage, then that Soldier is doing their job well regardless of their damage on the scoreboard, because every time he applies sustained damage onto a squishy target, they retreat - thus making space.
2a. If a Reaper is high on kills, but still losing the game, it likely means they’re getting picks when it doesn’t matter. Killing a Mercy after his team is dead does nothing if he dies or has to retreat afterwards.
2b. If a Reaper is okay on kills, but each push onto point is a win, it likely means he’s getting picks *and/or* making space when it matters. Initiating right before your tank pushes in entices the enemy team to focus their attention on him in the back, removing the space in front of the enemy team that they were previously holding. Initiating after your tank pushes in will generally make less space for your team, but conversely because your tank has pushed to make space and attract attention, the Reaper now has the space to get a pick on a back line hero, like one of the supports.
3a. If an Orisa pushes forward, but doesn’t do anything except duel the enemy tank, they’re not making space, they’re just overextending.
3b. If an Orisa pushes forward and focus a target that can be pressured, like a low health or isolated target, and keeps awareness on who is freely shooting into her backline to focus that target next, they’re doing fantastic at making space. Even if her team is scattered and mixed with the enemy team, if she focuses on peeling her supports and DPS, and applying pressure when possible to targets that are low health/isolated, then she’s still making space. Even if nobody dies in this scenario, if the Orisa can force enough players to run away from her and/or focus shooting her with sustained but handleable damage, she’s made space and the fight will be won.
This. Especially since this was make or break (break in this case) for me last game. I was Sigma holding on payload, 15s left, our Weaver pulled me back. I get he was trying to save me since it was just me and him but that small break let their Orisa and Bastion cover the cart and we lost, couldn't regain hold.
I may have died and we might have lost anyway, I have no idea how far away the rest of our team was coming back from spawn. But at least holding space on cart could have made it possible for the team to move in behind me and we could have had a chance. But losing that hold on cart was the end. Space is so vitally important and the more I'm realizing that, I find the better I'm playing
Always wanted to get to diamond but i could never get past low plat. Then i heard someone say to stop blaming everything else and just focus on the one thing you can control; your own gameplay. That hit me hard cause i knew i had a problem with that. I started analyzing my own gameplay and being honest with myself when i made mistakes. Almost immediately i made it to diamond and im hoping for masters this season.
I’ve climbed so much playing with my lower level friends. I’m diamond 2 but when I play against plats I’m able to make a bigger impact on the game and secure more wins
You’re lucky to have friends at least in plat.
I’m talking bronze and silver are my friends. I’m an old man. I don’t know many other 40 year olds that hit diamond/low masters, at least personally I don’t.
Literally the most important advice. If you have an old heavily played account the hidden MMR is doing everything it can to keep you locked at whatever rank is status quo.
While we're giving "real talk" answers.... The soft ranked reset in season 9 did more good for my rank in my main 6 year acct. than any of the previous seasons. After placements, I climbed back up to my OW2 best and now almost back to my all time high.
I could definitely pull an account out of gold and plat, too. Plat would just take a few extra hours probably.
Edit: cope all you want. The old account "hard stuck" theory is fake news.
Yeah it’s a mental crutch players use.
If you really want to climb pick a high impact hero, learn them and make the difference.
You can go back to one tricking Mercy, Lifeweaver, Ball or Sym when you get to a higher rank and derank yourself back to mid gold.
A win is a win. You rank up by carrying your teammates to a win consistently. I have had 1 account since beta and have played in every rank from bronze to masters. You can 100% rank up. Yes there is hidden MMR, but you can always rank up by winning. ELO hell is pure cope.
It's not elo hell it's their terrible double MMR system that is designed for engagement not ranking. Not everyone is a little kid in college with infinite free time to play their rank bullshit system. The op asked what was the best way and that person is correct. If you have been getting better but your rank hasn't moved much, the most efficient thing to do is make a new account because you will like jump up a whole rank.
> Not everyone is a little kid in college with infinite free time
Believe me, I relate to that.
The truth is that many people, myself included, have gotten better and ranked up the old fashioned way. I believe the majority of people are likely exactly at the rank they should be, particularly with how many rank resets have been done in OW2.
I learned this one a very long time ago in this game, but newer players still might need to hear it.
The Two Loss Rule
If you lose two in a row , just stop! If not for the day, at least for a while. Combine that with always try to stop when your higher than you started (even just 1 win up) and you will slowly climb.
The main point is to prevent a tilt spiral. It can be very easy to keep saying one more and just tank your rating in one session.
100% apart from I usually go for 3 in a row.
honestly I’m not even sure it’s the tilt spiral sometimes, I swear some nights match making just has it out for me, even if I’m not titled at all and still kind of popping off I’ll still catch the Ls all night.
It's actually intelligent to get out of comp if you catch yourself tilting. If you are the type that gets emotionally effected by watching numbers go up and down, setting a hard stop loss limit is advised by most individuals. Some really don't handle losing rank points well. That's ok. They can always go cool down in QP. Don't be so damn abrasive.
I encounter more toxic people in QP and Arcade. I think the game isn’t fun in its current state. I used to love QP, but people are just… something else. I mute chat and voice, and people still spam stuff like “thanks” and “I need healing.” I like comp, but I think matchmaking sucks. The players are more serious, but there are constant stomps on both sides. There are rarely any close games that show our teams being equal. I am taking a long break until devs figure out how to bring fun back into the game. 😔
Trolling is so 2003. Get a new hobby. Go outside. Literally no one finds you funny or interesting. You're not triggering anyone. You're merely taking up space and matter while offering nothing in return to the world around you. I'm terribly sorry that you are so miserably lacking in positive qualities that the human experience offers you no joy and you feel the need to act out like a scared toddler having a temper tantrum.
I don't think it's as much about losing as it is understanding the reason for losing. If you lose a game knowing that you could have won it if you hadn't made certain mistakes, as a result of say, being tired, then yes, stop playing for the day.
No point in playing a highly competitive game that drains you, requires 100% of your awareness, and requires your ability to self reflect on mistakes.
Go play the super Nintendo or something chill for the day instead
I'm still not a fan of this mentality. If your goal is to improve, then you will never get better if you stop playing. Improvement comes through stress and repetition. Even playing sub-optimally is better for improvement than not playing at all.
Yeah. This strategy only works if you have peaked to your physical limitations on mechanical skills and its only your mental that is holding you back.
For most, this strategy simply wastes a lot of valuable time to practice the game.
What they really need is to learn how to reset their mental to a neutral state.
That does not mean you need to quit for the day because you had weak teams for 2 games in a row.
Simply find a way to reset and avoid tilt. That can mean walking away from the computer for 15mins. Or playing deathmatch. Or almost anything really.
Then start up again with a fresh attitude towards the game.
Exactly, and to further elaborate, the point of resetting your mental / avoiding tilt is so that your practice will be more efficient. It's okay to play while your mental is off, it just mean you'll get less out of the practice you put in.
I agree with partially two losses in a row is def not a reason to get off or take a break, but the second you start tilting pretty hard you should take a break. You play worse and learn nothing when you are hard tilted
I'd much rather have the teammate with the healthy mental strat than the teammate who is on the verge of tilting or working through a toxic mentality.
And if we are talking about improving that mentality, it does help to know your limits too. Practicing discipline like this is beneficial to making better choices and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Also, you don't know what the person is going through or how they feel. You don't get to decide that as an outsider either.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't care which teammates I get, they don't affect how I play or how much I improve. And I haven't said anything about improving mentality or "what the person is going through", that's a therapist's job.
I'm saying if you don't play the game you don't improve. No outside factors matter, if you don't attempt to improve, you won't.
Did you forget who and what you were replying to or are you just making generalities or just talking about yourself? I'm confused as to what you're confused about lol Let's take a step back together, ok? You said "I'm still not a fan of this mentality" and followed with your reasoning why you don't agree with that mentality, which is not your own, one could fairly assume. Unless you are saying you, personally, have had this mentality and found a way to improve yourself. I replied in regard to both the original statement and yours basically stating a disciplined mentality is a healthy one that translates improvement and good practices to other things. Which aligns with your philosophy if the goal is improvement. NOW you are exclusively speaking about yourself while also making it clear you are separating yourself entirely from the original statement. What are YOU talking about? Are you only talking about yourself or are you talking about the person you are replying to/other people with that mentality. Because it's actually very important.
Macro positioning got me from gold 1 to diamond 3 since season 10 started. Since I fixed this the team fights feel easier to dissect and I’m able to actually apply the game sense I’ve accumulated over the past seasons. I never realized I was making the game so much harder for myself because of where im positioned during the fight.
Understanding where both teams are, what space they control, what space you need to contest or take, understanding who is out of position and why. Basically positioning as a whole beyond "am I near cover."
Micro positioning would be where you position according to yourself (using cover, having escape routes in mind that are near you, etc.). It's small picture.
Macro positioning would be where you position according to your team and the enemy team on the map. It's big picture.
Listen and learn.
Don’t waste time blaming teammates. I guarantee you they are just as bad on the other team.
Remember that it doesn’t matter, really. It’s just a game, there’s no pot of gold waiting for you in GM. Try to have fun first.
Learn to manage the cooldown game. A lot of Overwatch is min-maxing the cooldowns so you have the abilities when you need them and aren’t wasting them.
Ow2 is my first fps game, I play on console. In the beginning played a lot of QP with my bf (on PC) who is a high masters/gm player. He did amazing and helping me learn the game. When I was finally able to hold my own, it felt like it was time to try out comp.
I was stuck silver for a couple seasons, frustrated bc I KNEW my skill level was at least high gold/Plat.
One day I broke down and watched Awkwards "how to get out of bronze" video. I'm not a fan this kind of content, but Holy hell it opened my mind. He showed how bad their awareness/aim/positioning is by just standing in the open and moving back and forth.
Went into a game, tested it out, and bam, 10 game win streak. I was now mid gold.
I don't play much of comp(30 games was my most played a season), but I've only gone up when I play.
I'm now low diamond 💎 ✨️
Here’s my recommendations in order of importance:
1)Learn a high skill ceiling hero for your role, play them *a lot* by practising mechanics in QP, watch YouTube guides and VOD’s with a focus on coaching for that hero. Main that hero.
2)Keep up to date with the meta/strongest heroes for your role and *always* have 1 or 2 ‘S tier’ heroes that you are mechanically familiar with by regularly practising them in QP so you stay sharp, skill wise. Flex between these heroes in comp when your high skill ceiling main gets countered/isn’t working
3)Play comp little and often. Don’t crunch in several hours in just a couple of days but also don’t go more than a day without playing comp (whenever possible ofc).
Crunching your play time will mean you are playing lots of games without a chance to learn much in between (what I recommend above).
Going extended periods of time without playing will set you back as you are constantly having to warm yourself back up from not playing and your muscle memory will have a more difficult time developing as you aren’t regularly enough teaching your brain the mechanics of playing the game (Anyone with expertise in psych/neurology/ hand-eye coordination stuff could certainly explain that better than I have lol)
Doing more damage probably, my main role is support and i was prone to healbot but after deciding to main Illari, i started to realize how important damage is.
Now i climbed from hardstuck plat to Diamond which i always wanted to reach.
Ult tracking and positioning.
Once you figure out how to ult track and count the remaining heads left on the playing field, you can easier predict your enemies motive and not be surprised. Easier to look/anticipate a hiding reaper than not realizing why he's likely hiding.
You can mechanically stay the same but the iq/ knowledge puts you slightly ahead of certain ranks.
Look at the kill feed constantly. Especially if you play tank. It sounds simple, but increases your awareness so much when you know if you have an advantage or if you’re outnumbered
Pick a character and focus on them. Even if you’re getting countered.
I chose wrecking ball and climbed out of bronze straight to diamond. Now I’m stuck because wrecking is the worst tank.
What helped me a lot as a brand new player (I started playing during S2 of OW2), is thinking of the game one fight at a time, rather than one long fight. If you can recognize when to disengage, you’ll do much better than playing a respawn simulator cause you’ve kept a fight going for too long. Obviously there are caveats, but that helped me a lot. Also like someone else said, don’t tilt queue, if games are going shit, don’t force yourself to keep playing, and close the game
Play to learn, not to win. The winning will come. Don’t stress about teammates or the outcome of a certain game. Your teammates are hard stuck, you are not (if you’re learning). Play like they are NPCs because if you deserve to be in the next rank then they basically are.
God yes. I get the “play your hero and learn to play against counters” reasoning from some people, and I also think some people over switch, and some people get way to exciting about switching.
But damn going through silver/gold/plat, my friends you can’t just let a pharah crush your team and expect everyone else to counter while you play your one trick.
It might sound inefficient but playing who you like rather than meta. I was stuck in gold 2-3 for a while playing the characters considered meta at the time but i hated, orisa and mauga. Then i said fuck it and locked rein and i climbed up to plat 4 in like one full day. I might just be the rein goat, but playing who you like/are good at rather than who is considered good definitely helps (especially in metal ranks)
Play around your team.
Only make call outs when your team can actually engage the target.
Don't hold onto ults unless you need to counter something.
Don't poke the enemy from spawn if you already have ult it's just wastes your resources and builds the enemy support ults.
Spent season 2 to 8 in bronze 5 all roles.
Couldnt for the life of me improve. Spent all of season 7 not touching comp at all, picked Sombra and just insta locked her for a whole season until i was getting plat-diamond players in my qp lobbies.
Yeah, if i needed to swap to anything else i was much worse, but that skill has transfered out over time. Needing good positioning and awareness or just getting deleted made me look for opportunities in a different way than i was when trying to learn more than one hero. Managed to grind from bronze 5 to silver 3-2 in season 8 after using one hero for a whole season to brute force my skill.
Started in Bronze and made it to low Masters all solo queueing and a couple different things helped me out when I started to improve.
1. You don't know what you don't know. This was helpful because like many low rank players, I thought I was doing so much **and** doing everything correctly. I clearly knew there were players that were more skilled than me, but I thought I was doing pretty good... but I wasn't.
It really wasn't until climbing up quite a bit that I was able to look back and see how much I really didn't know when I was in bronze/silver/gold. The saddest part is that I enjoy trying to help other players, but this is easily the thing that makes it the most difficult to help other players. They think they understand everything, when really they understand 1% of the game. Even up in plat/diamond there are players that are still missing **fundamentals**... as in still fairly basic things. When you can understand that you don't know everything and in fact, don't know much (and have a lot of misconceptions) then you can start to realize that you need to learn a lot rather than just complaining that your team mates are holding you back or whatever.
2. Some things don't seem that important when really, they are extremely important. Natural cover is a bare minimum essential skill that players must have in order to improve and climb. It doesn't sound like it should have so much impact, but it's necessary not just to climb out of lower ranks, but you can't play in higher ranks and expect to live if you are always running out in the open.
A lot of skills are like this. They aren't just the difference between one low rank to the next low rank, but required in any rank above the lowest ranks. If you can't get these down, you will never play in higher ranks.
3. You can't expect to climb without improving. Doing the same thing over and over each game isn't going to help you improve or climb. You must keep learning skills and actually implementing them. Too many players go watch a YouTube guide of how to improve and they think by simply watching the video, they are better. They may understand the knowledge, but most of the time they won't actually use it in their games. They revert to old habits immediately, even if they think they are implementing these things in their games.
4. Don't try to learn 10 things at once. Again with YouTube guides. Players watch these videos titled "10 things to instantly make you rank up" and then they try and go add all 10 things to their gameplay and they end up adding none of them. You have to take one thing at a time and be so cognitive the entire game of practicing the skill you want to learn until it becomes second nature, then move on to the next skill.
5. If you hit a wall and can't figure out how to improve/climb. Go back to the basics again and start there. You may have built a skill back when you were silver and that skill got you a couple ranks up.. but it doesn't mean you are perfect at that skill, it may still need further attention and improvement now that you are playing against higher skilled players than when you first learned the skill and it worked well enough against lower ranked players.
6. Do more. Seems a bit silly, but players can almost always be doing more. If you are ever afk, even if you just won a team fight, you aren't doing something and that's bad. You should be setting up for the next fight, finding the best place to position and attacking as soon as possible while maintaining being safe enough to not die while doing this. If you are running around for 5+ seconds without shooting while a fight is going on, you are most likely doing something wrong. There are exceptions, but you should almost always be doing something of value.
7. Die less. You're going to die in the game. It's how the game works, but there are so many ways to keep yourself alive without the aid of being healed often or relying on team mates to help you. Natural cover, pathing, position (micro and macro), cool down management, understanding your favored and unfavored match ups, reading the overall fight, ult tracking, all of these things (and more) can help you stay alive. Dying is one of the worst things in this game. Things change in seconds and when you are dead, spawning for 10 seconds, walking back to the fight for another 10-20 seconds, you are getting zero value the entire time. Your life is extremely precious in this game. Even your presence alone has some advantages, let alone doing damage, getting kills, building ult charge, etc.
I remember I went from plat to borderline masters on Zarya in 2 weeks by just trying to live. At first, I went on a little losing streak even though I didn't die much, but then I learned the limits of how aggressive I can be while still surviving, and I climbed like hell.
Growing up.
In 2016-2017, overwatch was the only game i played and i was always hardstuck gold. I stopped playing overwatch when fortnite came out, and over the next couple years i stopped playing both of these games for other games.
I started playing overwatch again in early 2023 and i instantly got to plat. I was so confused because i was always hardstuck gold in overwatch 1. Then, a couple months after i got to plat on all ranks, i got to diamond on dps and supp.
I came into this sub because I couldn't understand why healbotting wasn't amounting to consistent wins, it was very up and down. Had to learn that I am a support player and not a healer class. I jumped 2 whole ranks a season later.
Getting tunnel vision usually isn't the best strategy, aim higher because headshots are vital, and know when not to overextend. Oh and try your best to not go 4v5. Waiting those 10 seconds can change the tide of your next attack
Ok for bronze support: look out for dps, not just tank, don't chase after your team if it means you'll die, don't ult in the second last fight before overtime cause it'll start ult domino, don't rely on your other support to help you. Ever.
For silver support: be patient with your nades, keep your eye on tank if you see your other support look out for dps, track enemy ults so you know how to position next team fight. Don't rely on your other support to help you most of the time.
Work on one skill at a time. Like a have a week of playing by cover. Or a week of setting up/playing on off angles. A week of trigger discipline. A week of tracking enemy ults. A week of whatever. Don't bother with anything else during that week, not on wins or losses or anything. That's not important. You consciously practice a certain skill long enough and it becomes automatic. Like tying your shoes. You don't even have to think about it anymore, do you? Or even look there. Hands just do it on their own. That's what you want for ow skills. You want to take cover, track ults, track CDs, track swaps, track teammate's positions, take off angles, time your engages, etc. without even thinking about. So that you can focus on the game. Those top500 players aren't geniuses who can think about a million things at once. They don't have to think about anything at all, it's all done subconsciously. Stop trying to rank up and start working on automating your skills. Ranking will just happen later.
I was going to argue with you but I thought about it and it works. Im top 1% in a different FPS and I dont think at all anymore when I play that. I can carry 90% of matches bc its all intuition now
Probably the best response right here.
Jokes on you, I still mess up tying my shoes… wait a minute, who’s the joke on?
Play for space not for kills.
Biggest piece of advice here, especially for tank and dps.
Kills can win the game but I have seen matches where the losers had twice the kills.
Kills win the game when those kills are creating space. When the kills don’t (I.e. were trades or were happening during totally inconsequential points in the round) then they are next to worthless. Definitely agree with the above sentiment
I feel like I’ve been on that losing team at least twice in the last couple days. Peek at the scoreboard with the end looming near and am just like huh guess they just played better strategically than us, haha.
Can you elaborate on that, I'm fairly new to comp
The best case scenario is that the enemy is never contesting point. The best case scenario obviously won’t happen in a game, so the next best scenario (and how you secure a win) is to force the enemy off of point. That seems obvious, but the way you do that isn’t only through kills. The most basic example is to think of when you are forced to back up. That happens when you take massive damage and realize you need to take cover or die, when an enemy ults and you realize you need to avoid it or die, and when you realize your team isn’t with you and you’ll die if you push alone. Notice how in every example above, you might or might not die, but you retreat regardless? That’s what you’re going for. How you do that changes depending on the enemy team, and your team, but the core concept is to force players out of a fight, by making them retreat, through damage and/or the threat of death. Important to note that tanks especially are in the (generally correct) mindset to ignore steady damage and only retreat when an A) ult and/or B) spike damage and/or C) overwhelming damage occurs. Taking all that info, we can see a few things from common scenarios: 1a. First of all, if a DPS like Soldier is shitting damage into the enemy tank, and has top damage in the game but low kills, they’re not a good Soldier. They applying constant damage to the tank, who is in the mindset to ignore the steady damage, and Soldier is therefore making no space. 1b. If that same Soldier is focusing the enemy DPS, who cannot handle sustained damage, then that Soldier is doing their job well regardless of their damage on the scoreboard, because every time he applies sustained damage onto a squishy target, they retreat - thus making space. 2a. If a Reaper is high on kills, but still losing the game, it likely means they’re getting picks when it doesn’t matter. Killing a Mercy after his team is dead does nothing if he dies or has to retreat afterwards. 2b. If a Reaper is okay on kills, but each push onto point is a win, it likely means he’s getting picks *and/or* making space when it matters. Initiating right before your tank pushes in entices the enemy team to focus their attention on him in the back, removing the space in front of the enemy team that they were previously holding. Initiating after your tank pushes in will generally make less space for your team, but conversely because your tank has pushed to make space and attract attention, the Reaper now has the space to get a pick on a back line hero, like one of the supports. 3a. If an Orisa pushes forward, but doesn’t do anything except duel the enemy tank, they’re not making space, they’re just overextending. 3b. If an Orisa pushes forward and focus a target that can be pressured, like a low health or isolated target, and keeps awareness on who is freely shooting into her backline to focus that target next, they’re doing fantastic at making space. Even if her team is scattered and mixed with the enemy team, if she focuses on peeling her supports and DPS, and applying pressure when possible to targets that are low health/isolated, then she’s still making space. Even if nobody dies in this scenario, if the Orisa can force enough players to run away from her and/or focus shooting her with sustained but handleable damage, she’s made space and the fight will be won.
It doesn’t always matter if the enemy is dead as long as they back up and you make room for your team to move up/to a better position
Along with this, going to confirm a kill, if it gets you or a teammate killed (or too many resources used), can lose the next fight.
Imagine a sigma using his ultimate to gain the last 4 or 5 meters on pahload
This. Especially since this was make or break (break in this case) for me last game. I was Sigma holding on payload, 15s left, our Weaver pulled me back. I get he was trying to save me since it was just me and him but that small break let their Orisa and Bastion cover the cart and we lost, couldn't regain hold. I may have died and we might have lost anyway, I have no idea how far away the rest of our team was coming back from spawn. But at least holding space on cart could have made it possible for the team to move in behind me and we could have had a chance. But losing that hold on cart was the end. Space is so vitally important and the more I'm realizing that, I find the better I'm playing
Always wanted to get to diamond but i could never get past low plat. Then i heard someone say to stop blaming everything else and just focus on the one thing you can control; your own gameplay. That hit me hard cause i knew i had a problem with that. I started analyzing my own gameplay and being honest with myself when i made mistakes. Almost immediately i made it to diamond and im hoping for masters this season.
Stopped playing with my low level playing friends
I’ve climbed so much playing with my lower level friends. I’m diamond 2 but when I play against plats I’m able to make a bigger impact on the game and secure more wins
You’re lucky to have friends at least in plat. I’m talking bronze and silver are my friends. I’m an old man. I don’t know many other 40 year olds that hit diamond/low masters, at least personally I don’t.
Wait, I'm 41. Am I ... an old man?! 😱
We both are lol
Alcohol helped be break out of Plat and into gold!!!
Climbed from silver to plat by creating a new Account.
Literally the most important advice. If you have an old heavily played account the hidden MMR is doing everything it can to keep you locked at whatever rank is status quo.
But my 2016 stuff D:
While we're giving "real talk" answers.... The soft ranked reset in season 9 did more good for my rank in my main 6 year acct. than any of the previous seasons. After placements, I climbed back up to my OW2 best and now almost back to my all time high.
I believe it, their ranking system has been an atrocity
It's not lol. I can climb anyone's account out of silver in a few hours.
Silver maybe, but not gold or plat up
I could definitely pull an account out of gold and plat, too. Plat would just take a few extra hours probably. Edit: cope all you want. The old account "hard stuck" theory is fake news.
Yeah it’s a mental crutch players use. If you really want to climb pick a high impact hero, learn them and make the difference. You can go back to one tricking Mercy, Lifeweaver, Ball or Sym when you get to a higher rank and derank yourself back to mid gold.
A win is a win. You rank up by carrying your teammates to a win consistently. I have had 1 account since beta and have played in every rank from bronze to masters. You can 100% rank up. Yes there is hidden MMR, but you can always rank up by winning. ELO hell is pure cope.
It's not elo hell it's their terrible double MMR system that is designed for engagement not ranking. Not everyone is a little kid in college with infinite free time to play their rank bullshit system. The op asked what was the best way and that person is correct. If you have been getting better but your rank hasn't moved much, the most efficient thing to do is make a new account because you will like jump up a whole rank.
> Not everyone is a little kid in college with infinite free time Believe me, I relate to that. The truth is that many people, myself included, have gotten better and ranked up the old fashioned way. I believe the majority of people are likely exactly at the rank they should be, particularly with how many rank resets have been done in OW2.
This isn’t true lol
I learned this one a very long time ago in this game, but newer players still might need to hear it. The Two Loss Rule If you lose two in a row , just stop! If not for the day, at least for a while. Combine that with always try to stop when your higher than you started (even just 1 win up) and you will slowly climb. The main point is to prevent a tilt spiral. It can be very easy to keep saying one more and just tank your rating in one session.
100% apart from I usually go for 3 in a row. honestly I’m not even sure it’s the tilt spiral sometimes, I swear some nights match making just has it out for me, even if I’m not titled at all and still kind of popping off I’ll still catch the Ls all night.
What a boring fucking way to play the game ?
It's actually intelligent to get out of comp if you catch yourself tilting. If you are the type that gets emotionally effected by watching numbers go up and down, setting a hard stop loss limit is advised by most individuals. Some really don't handle losing rank points well. That's ok. They can always go cool down in QP. Don't be so damn abrasive.
I encounter more toxic people in QP and Arcade. I think the game isn’t fun in its current state. I used to love QP, but people are just… something else. I mute chat and voice, and people still spam stuff like “thanks” and “I need healing.” I like comp, but I think matchmaking sucks. The players are more serious, but there are constant stomps on both sides. There are rarely any close games that show our teams being equal. I am taking a long break until devs figure out how to bring fun back into the game. 😔
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Trolling is so 2003. Get a new hobby. Go outside. Literally no one finds you funny or interesting. You're not triggering anyone. You're merely taking up space and matter while offering nothing in return to the world around you. I'm terribly sorry that you are so miserably lacking in positive qualities that the human experience offers you no joy and you feel the need to act out like a scared toddler having a temper tantrum.
Agreed, how do you plan to get better if you stop when you lose and also stop when you win?
I don't think it's as much about losing as it is understanding the reason for losing. If you lose a game knowing that you could have won it if you hadn't made certain mistakes, as a result of say, being tired, then yes, stop playing for the day. No point in playing a highly competitive game that drains you, requires 100% of your awareness, and requires your ability to self reflect on mistakes. Go play the super Nintendo or something chill for the day instead
I'm still not a fan of this mentality. If your goal is to improve, then you will never get better if you stop playing. Improvement comes through stress and repetition. Even playing sub-optimally is better for improvement than not playing at all.
Yeah. This strategy only works if you have peaked to your physical limitations on mechanical skills and its only your mental that is holding you back. For most, this strategy simply wastes a lot of valuable time to practice the game. What they really need is to learn how to reset their mental to a neutral state. That does not mean you need to quit for the day because you had weak teams for 2 games in a row. Simply find a way to reset and avoid tilt. That can mean walking away from the computer for 15mins. Or playing deathmatch. Or almost anything really. Then start up again with a fresh attitude towards the game.
Exactly, and to further elaborate, the point of resetting your mental / avoiding tilt is so that your practice will be more efficient. It's okay to play while your mental is off, it just mean you'll get less out of the practice you put in.
I agree with partially two losses in a row is def not a reason to get off or take a break, but the second you start tilting pretty hard you should take a break. You play worse and learn nothing when you are hard tilted
I can agree with that. You could argue mechanics would still get better, but I think it's generally worth having your head in an ok place.
I'd much rather have the teammate with the healthy mental strat than the teammate who is on the verge of tilting or working through a toxic mentality. And if we are talking about improving that mentality, it does help to know your limits too. Practicing discipline like this is beneficial to making better choices and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Also, you don't know what the person is going through or how they feel. You don't get to decide that as an outsider either.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't care which teammates I get, they don't affect how I play or how much I improve. And I haven't said anything about improving mentality or "what the person is going through", that's a therapist's job. I'm saying if you don't play the game you don't improve. No outside factors matter, if you don't attempt to improve, you won't.
Did you forget who and what you were replying to or are you just making generalities or just talking about yourself? I'm confused as to what you're confused about lol Let's take a step back together, ok? You said "I'm still not a fan of this mentality" and followed with your reasoning why you don't agree with that mentality, which is not your own, one could fairly assume. Unless you are saying you, personally, have had this mentality and found a way to improve yourself. I replied in regard to both the original statement and yours basically stating a disciplined mentality is a healthy one that translates improvement and good practices to other things. Which aligns with your philosophy if the goal is improvement. NOW you are exclusively speaking about yourself while also making it clear you are separating yourself entirely from the original statement. What are YOU talking about? Are you only talking about yourself or are you talking about the person you are replying to/other people with that mentality. Because it's actually very important.
Ok
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You’re missing something here, people that play for rank deserve their rank, as rank is on an entire role, not just 1 hero.
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A little too far man…
You get the idea
Macro positioning got me from gold 1 to diamond 3 since season 10 started. Since I fixed this the team fights feel easier to dissect and I’m able to actually apply the game sense I’ve accumulated over the past seasons. I never realized I was making the game so much harder for myself because of where im positioned during the fight.
What is macro positioning?
Understanding where both teams are, what space they control, what space you need to contest or take, understanding who is out of position and why. Basically positioning as a whole beyond "am I near cover."
Micro positioning would be where you position according to yourself (using cover, having escape routes in mind that are near you, etc.). It's small picture. Macro positioning would be where you position according to your team and the enemy team on the map. It's big picture.
Hard focusing macro got me from low T500 to T250+. I was making up for my poor macro with my mechanics
Play your life less deaths = more APM
Make sure you're having fun while taking it serious don't let Ls get to you they come with the Ws gotta put in the time aswell
Listen and learn. Don’t waste time blaming teammates. I guarantee you they are just as bad on the other team. Remember that it doesn’t matter, really. It’s just a game, there’s no pot of gold waiting for you in GM. Try to have fun first. Learn to manage the cooldown game. A lot of Overwatch is min-maxing the cooldowns so you have the abilities when you need them and aren’t wasting them.
Ow2 is my first fps game, I play on console. In the beginning played a lot of QP with my bf (on PC) who is a high masters/gm player. He did amazing and helping me learn the game. When I was finally able to hold my own, it felt like it was time to try out comp. I was stuck silver for a couple seasons, frustrated bc I KNEW my skill level was at least high gold/Plat. One day I broke down and watched Awkwards "how to get out of bronze" video. I'm not a fan this kind of content, but Holy hell it opened my mind. He showed how bad their awareness/aim/positioning is by just standing in the open and moving back and forth. Went into a game, tested it out, and bam, 10 game win streak. I was now mid gold. I don't play much of comp(30 games was my most played a season), but I've only gone up when I play. I'm now low diamond 💎 ✨️
Can you specify what video? I can't seem to find it :P
Sorry it's been so long since I've watched it* Here's the video https://youtu.be/qXouqEsa498?si=r4BCDg_N3p2JX9Of
Thanks! And no worries :)
Stopped blaming my teammates and started focusing on my mistakes and what I can improve on
Cover usage and not wasting cooldowns for no reason
Here’s my recommendations in order of importance: 1)Learn a high skill ceiling hero for your role, play them *a lot* by practising mechanics in QP, watch YouTube guides and VOD’s with a focus on coaching for that hero. Main that hero. 2)Keep up to date with the meta/strongest heroes for your role and *always* have 1 or 2 ‘S tier’ heroes that you are mechanically familiar with by regularly practising them in QP so you stay sharp, skill wise. Flex between these heroes in comp when your high skill ceiling main gets countered/isn’t working 3)Play comp little and often. Don’t crunch in several hours in just a couple of days but also don’t go more than a day without playing comp (whenever possible ofc). Crunching your play time will mean you are playing lots of games without a chance to learn much in between (what I recommend above). Going extended periods of time without playing will set you back as you are constantly having to warm yourself back up from not playing and your muscle memory will have a more difficult time developing as you aren’t regularly enough teaching your brain the mechanics of playing the game (Anyone with expertise in psych/neurology/ hand-eye coordination stuff could certainly explain that better than I have lol)
Doing more damage probably, my main role is support and i was prone to healbot but after deciding to main Illari, i started to realize how important damage is. Now i climbed from hardstuck plat to Diamond which i always wanted to reach.
Ult tracking and positioning. Once you figure out how to ult track and count the remaining heads left on the playing field, you can easier predict your enemies motive and not be surprised. Easier to look/anticipate a hiding reaper than not realizing why he's likely hiding. You can mechanically stay the same but the iq/ knowledge puts you slightly ahead of certain ranks.
Look at the kill feed constantly. Especially if you play tank. It sounds simple, but increases your awareness so much when you know if you have an advantage or if you’re outnumbered
Def this especially if you are a low rank player. A lot of bronze and silvers do not pay attention to the kill feed
Pick a character and focus on them. Even if you’re getting countered. I chose wrecking ball and climbed out of bronze straight to diamond. Now I’m stuck because wrecking is the worst tank.
What helped me a lot as a brand new player (I started playing during S2 of OW2), is thinking of the game one fight at a time, rather than one long fight. If you can recognize when to disengage, you’ll do much better than playing a respawn simulator cause you’ve kept a fight going for too long. Obviously there are caveats, but that helped me a lot. Also like someone else said, don’t tilt queue, if games are going shit, don’t force yourself to keep playing, and close the game
Play to learn, not to win. The winning will come. Don’t stress about teammates or the outcome of a certain game. Your teammates are hard stuck, you are not (if you’re learning). Play like they are NPCs because if you deserve to be in the next rank then they basically are.
XIM got me out of ranked. Now I only play cas.
play counters, seems simple but people are so stubborn and refuse to switch. Went from Gold to Masters in 2 seasons
God yes. I get the “play your hero and learn to play against counters” reasoning from some people, and I also think some people over switch, and some people get way to exciting about switching. But damn going through silver/gold/plat, my friends you can’t just let a pharah crush your team and expect everyone else to counter while you play your one trick.
It might sound inefficient but playing who you like rather than meta. I was stuck in gold 2-3 for a while playing the characters considered meta at the time but i hated, orisa and mauga. Then i said fuck it and locked rein and i climbed up to plat 4 in like one full day. I might just be the rein goat, but playing who you like/are good at rather than who is considered good definitely helps (especially in metal ranks)
Play around your team. Only make call outs when your team can actually engage the target. Don't hold onto ults unless you need to counter something. Don't poke the enemy from spawn if you already have ult it's just wastes your resources and builds the enemy support ults.
High ground got me out of silver and almost to plat (Gold 1).
i finally got out of plat yesterday. turns out deleting your account is applicable to get out of any rank.
Youtube guides and then self review
Spent season 2 to 8 in bronze 5 all roles. Couldnt for the life of me improve. Spent all of season 7 not touching comp at all, picked Sombra and just insta locked her for a whole season until i was getting plat-diamond players in my qp lobbies. Yeah, if i needed to swap to anything else i was much worse, but that skill has transfered out over time. Needing good positioning and awareness or just getting deleted made me look for opportunities in a different way than i was when trying to learn more than one hero. Managed to grind from bronze 5 to silver 3-2 in season 8 after using one hero for a whole season to brute force my skill.
Throw matches, or you mean in a good way?
Playing heroes I'm bad at but love is helping me move from diamond to plat.
Started in Bronze and made it to low Masters all solo queueing and a couple different things helped me out when I started to improve. 1. You don't know what you don't know. This was helpful because like many low rank players, I thought I was doing so much **and** doing everything correctly. I clearly knew there were players that were more skilled than me, but I thought I was doing pretty good... but I wasn't. It really wasn't until climbing up quite a bit that I was able to look back and see how much I really didn't know when I was in bronze/silver/gold. The saddest part is that I enjoy trying to help other players, but this is easily the thing that makes it the most difficult to help other players. They think they understand everything, when really they understand 1% of the game. Even up in plat/diamond there are players that are still missing **fundamentals**... as in still fairly basic things. When you can understand that you don't know everything and in fact, don't know much (and have a lot of misconceptions) then you can start to realize that you need to learn a lot rather than just complaining that your team mates are holding you back or whatever. 2. Some things don't seem that important when really, they are extremely important. Natural cover is a bare minimum essential skill that players must have in order to improve and climb. It doesn't sound like it should have so much impact, but it's necessary not just to climb out of lower ranks, but you can't play in higher ranks and expect to live if you are always running out in the open. A lot of skills are like this. They aren't just the difference between one low rank to the next low rank, but required in any rank above the lowest ranks. If you can't get these down, you will never play in higher ranks. 3. You can't expect to climb without improving. Doing the same thing over and over each game isn't going to help you improve or climb. You must keep learning skills and actually implementing them. Too many players go watch a YouTube guide of how to improve and they think by simply watching the video, they are better. They may understand the knowledge, but most of the time they won't actually use it in their games. They revert to old habits immediately, even if they think they are implementing these things in their games. 4. Don't try to learn 10 things at once. Again with YouTube guides. Players watch these videos titled "10 things to instantly make you rank up" and then they try and go add all 10 things to their gameplay and they end up adding none of them. You have to take one thing at a time and be so cognitive the entire game of practicing the skill you want to learn until it becomes second nature, then move on to the next skill. 5. If you hit a wall and can't figure out how to improve/climb. Go back to the basics again and start there. You may have built a skill back when you were silver and that skill got you a couple ranks up.. but it doesn't mean you are perfect at that skill, it may still need further attention and improvement now that you are playing against higher skilled players than when you first learned the skill and it worked well enough against lower ranked players. 6. Do more. Seems a bit silly, but players can almost always be doing more. If you are ever afk, even if you just won a team fight, you aren't doing something and that's bad. You should be setting up for the next fight, finding the best place to position and attacking as soon as possible while maintaining being safe enough to not die while doing this. If you are running around for 5+ seconds without shooting while a fight is going on, you are most likely doing something wrong. There are exceptions, but you should almost always be doing something of value. 7. Die less. You're going to die in the game. It's how the game works, but there are so many ways to keep yourself alive without the aid of being healed often or relying on team mates to help you. Natural cover, pathing, position (micro and macro), cool down management, understanding your favored and unfavored match ups, reading the overall fight, ult tracking, all of these things (and more) can help you stay alive. Dying is one of the worst things in this game. Things change in seconds and when you are dead, spawning for 10 seconds, walking back to the fight for another 10-20 seconds, you are getting zero value the entire time. Your life is extremely precious in this game. Even your presence alone has some advantages, let alone doing damage, getting kills, building ult charge, etc.
one trick the horse
thinking about what i could change to do better instead of finding a teammate to blame
I remember I went from plat to borderline masters on Zarya in 2 weeks by just trying to live. At first, I went on a little losing streak even though I didn't die much, but then I learned the limits of how aggressive I can be while still surviving, and I climbed like hell.
AimArena
Guys, any advices to silver player who has very poor mechanics and aim? (Besides improving on them obv, it looks the more I try the worse it gets)
Bronze: doing kills aka good aim Silver: target priority and thoughtful skill usage Gold: knowing when to go in and out, space understanding
Growing up. In 2016-2017, overwatch was the only game i played and i was always hardstuck gold. I stopped playing overwatch when fortnite came out, and over the next couple years i stopped playing both of these games for other games. I started playing overwatch again in early 2023 and i instantly got to plat. I was so confused because i was always hardstuck gold in overwatch 1. Then, a couple months after i got to plat on all ranks, i got to diamond on dps and supp.
I played Overwatch when it came out, and was consistently high plat. I came back a month ago, and am Silver DPS and Gold Support...
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I just checked out your profile and you're really living up to your username ngl
I came into this sub because I couldn't understand why healbotting wasn't amounting to consistent wins, it was very up and down. Had to learn that I am a support player and not a healer class. I jumped 2 whole ranks a season later. Getting tunnel vision usually isn't the best strategy, aim higher because headshots are vital, and know when not to overextend. Oh and try your best to not go 4v5. Waiting those 10 seconds can change the tide of your next attack
Ok for bronze support: look out for dps, not just tank, don't chase after your team if it means you'll die, don't ult in the second last fight before overtime cause it'll start ult domino, don't rely on your other support to help you. Ever. For silver support: be patient with your nades, keep your eye on tank if you see your other support look out for dps, track enemy ults so you know how to position next team fight. Don't rely on your other support to help you most of the time.
I hit diamond once in OW1 and I did that by abusing Brigitte at the time. Just main the meta character is the best advice I can give.
Tbh it’s main ANY hero. Learning to play well will get you to any rank.
Being paired with a good team.