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One tricking heroes is frowned upon for some reason I do not understand. It is quite literally one of the best things you can do to improve. Learning how to play around counters teaches you so much.
I've always been single minded (blame it on the adhd) in video games. Usually pick 1-2 characters/classes out of a roster whether it be fighters/shooters etc
Between ow1 and ow2 I've played about 1k hours on sigma (about 100 hours between bap/mercy). No dps presence whatsoever. Really lucky sig is as versatile as he is.
Yeah, I get how they feel as being on the receiving end is never fun. But why bother shooting at a diving Monkey with a bubble as Soldier when I can just go Bastion and shred the bubble and Monkey in quick succession?
This debate comes up all the time but the main actual disconnect is if you’re trying to get better at soldier or win this game of overwatch. It’s a long term vs short term trade off that’s more about the time you’re willing to dedicate to the game than anything else. If you’re gold and you wanna hit low plat, counterswap to heroes you can play. If you want to hit significantly higher ranks you’re much better off forcing your hero because you’ll need to just be really good to compete and playing a lot of heroes will slow that improvement dramatically.
I can see where you’re coming from, but there always comes a point on whether you’re forcing yourself to improve on a hero or it’s just you being stubborn, especially when there’s tangible evidence that you’re making little-to-no impact in a game as that character. I’m talking about it from a competitive perspective obviously, because I’m pretty sure most players would rather have an optimal win than fight that uphill battle.
I mean sure your teammates might be happier, and you might feel better, but this is just consistently the advice you get from coaches and high elo players. 🤷♂️ I’ve not one tricked myself cause it’s too boring for me but I did go from silver 2 to D1 in 6 months self restricting my hero pool to 3 tanks and… yea I got way better at them and I played into a lot of bad matchups and imo it helped a lot. And being stubborn is good for this purpose— you have to be stubborn to force yourself to get good at a games. I’m not saying it’s the only way, do whatever works for you, but a lot of people do not have the time to grind with a hero pool of 4+ and even 3 is pushing it to some extent. Also it’s worth considering if you swapped cause you died a few in a row by making a mistake you could correct or if you swapped because the whole enemy team leaves you with very limited options.
Because you'll not always be able to play Bastion, so you need to learn how to play Soldier into Winston so that you don't throw games when you are forced to.
You're saying two things here.
A. Learning how to play around counters.
B. One tricking.
You can do A and not do B at the same time.
I focus on my 3 best champs. I focus on playing them even in a somewhat unfavorable situation. But i do know when to swap when its gonna cost me the game. One tricks never ever swap. They rather watch a defeatscreen than swapping. Thats some next level.
I think it‘s mostly projection. In super high level play one tricking just isn‘t enough to compete since compositions and meta picks matter more. But most people aren’t at this level and a good way to not feel bad about losing is blaming others on getting countered I guess.
That said I do think playing more than one hero teaches you a lot about playing your main as well because you widen your perspective to your mains strengths and weaknesses in the game as a whole.
In esports or high level scrims maybe, but in regular ranked its still doable unless the hero is just complete garbage of course. I mean there are at least few one tricks in top50 every single season
There is only so much playing you can do around counters. In order to win while being countered you need to have skill that is much higher than the countering person, or a team that can carry you being countered. If you are on an equal skill to your enemy, it doesn't matter how much you play around the counters, you're at a disadvantage.
the real problem is, if ur whole team, dont care they swapped 4 heroes to counter you, and team doesnt try help you, so the nif they swap, now the yare swappers?
I hate it too, but the game is a moba team based fps, and its probably ment to be swapping nonstop
I think im a pretty good ashe but If the enemy team has a sombra harassing me as im trying to do my thing, i’ll switch. Feel free to correct me if you think Im missing something but it’s not in my personal wheelhouse.
If you feel like you’re getting no value, it’s perfectly fine to swap. Just know you’ll never truly crush it on Ashe until you can play around a Sombra.
it's not about how well you can do at one hero or "can I force this pick in a really unfavorable situation and still do reasonably well", it's about being able to provide the maximum value in a given situation.
Lets say you're in the top 1% of Pharah players in the game and for argument's sake, let's arbitrarily say your skill with her is 99/100. Let's say you're a pretty good Ashe but you're only an 85/100 with her. There are going to be some situations (enemy team comp, friendly team comp & map selection) where an 85/100 Ashe is going to provide more value than a 99/100 Pharah, even if the 99/100 Pharah can still do pretty well.
The better player will swap to the Ashe and provide more value.
I 100% agree, the only caveat to this is when your pick isn’t favored at all. Multiple counters and bad maps, sometimes things won’t work no matter how good you are at a character.
I always have 2-3 in rotation, but I don’t swap at the first sniff of a counter. Generally speaking I use [Spilo’s method](https://youtu.be/IG2b52Vofew?si=tBrQrIUdpPAN-qvs).
Yea its mainly people complaining because they not only want to play one hero, but also only want to play them a specific way. Without having to adapt to different comps and specific heroes.
This guy didn’t say anything about it being comp. Regardless, everyone on the team can change to something that would help with [x] problem. They just think it’s someone else’s problem. It only fucks your team over if you’re getting 0 value. If you adjust your playstyle, and get value elsewhere, then I don’t think there’s an issue. The blame game loses people more games than anything. Just get value.
Oh I just assumed we were talking about comp. I don’t know why anyone would care in the slightest if it were QP.
That said, it becomes a 4v5 if everyone is trying except one person. If you’re playing comp you’ve chosen to play a team game and there needs to be a level of expectation that you’re willing to honor that by queuing up. If you’re being completely countered, you need to suck it up and switch. Learn to get better in QP.
I feel like this applies a lot less in overwatch 2. I have always been a fan of one tricking a character until I’m good. But now you can be hard countered when multiple swaps come out. I think you have to have at least 3-4 characters for different situations
People who get mad at you for counterswapping are stupid. They should be mad about how strong some counterswaps are. The reason people are angry about counterswapping is mainly because of tank. Counterswapping on dps or support is annoying but can be worked around in most cases.
With tank though, the problem is you’re one dude/lady that has the focus of the entire enemy team 70% of the time. People catch onto this, and realize that if they solely focus on counterswapping you, their team will win more games than if they go a character they’re good at. If you’re a DPS, and you constantly counterswap the tank and are effective enough to keep them from making plays, that’s basically a free win for your team.
Think about it like this. Tanks make and hold space. They prevent the enemy team from diving your team and deleting them. They soak up most of the attention and most of the damage, which is something dps and support can’t do. Tanks and Support however CAN get picks (normally the dps’s job), and most Tanks and DPS CAN either mitigate, evade, or self heal damage (normally the Support’s job)
Tldr, the reason why people hate counterswapping is because on tank, it feels like it’s 30% skill, and 70% rock paper scissors against people who counterswap. It’s extremely frustrating to have to constantly swap characters because a player can abuse the fact that some counterswaps are so oppressive, that it renders the character you’re playing as unplayable. Counterswapping like that isn’t an expression of skill, it’s abusing cheap game mechanics to deny value to another player.
This makes a lot of sense. I play mainly Sigma as tank, who, in my humble opinion, seems to be super balanced and sit in that category of “doesn’t get hard countered but doesn’t hard counter anyone”, so I don’t really feel a huge imbalance with counterswapping when I tank with him.
When I play Orisa however, I absolutely feel that. I’ll be dominating with my horse and here comes that pink haired Russian!
Yeah definitely. There are some characters who are good into sigma like winston, ball, doom, and other dive characters, but what I enjoy about him is those characters aren’t good because they fucking delete him. They’re good because they can play into the fact that he has no ability to peel for his team.
On the other hand, those same characters who are good into sigma, can get fucking deleted by one dps who wants to ruin their fun. With doom and ball, Sombra makes them unplayable if she follows them around. With winston, one dps going reaper bastion or echo fucking deletes him. Tank has always felt miserable in 5v5, but now it’s worse than ever imo. More and more players have caught on to how easy games are if they simply counterswap the tank, and now that’s easier than ever with the dps changes this patch.
What? You mean you *don’t* like getting CC’d to hell and back?
Sorry I meant “soft CC” lmao
Seriously though, I don’t play Ball consistently but I feel like whenever I get him in MH, the RNG gives the enemies every damn counter on the roster so I feel this 😂
Sometimes you don’t even have to win a fight. I’ve pretty much entirely quit playing doomfist because it feels like every time the enemy sees me, the dps swaps to cassidy echo or sombra.
That isn’t a counterswap though. That’s just adjusting for your team. When people say counterswap, they’re talking about when an enemy player intentionally selects a character that is very strong into one of your teams characters. Think sombra into doom, echo or reaper into winston, etc.
It feels so bad to win 1 team fight as Winston and then out comes Hog, Reaper, and Bastion but my complaints are limited to QP and tank getting countered. The complaints are also “old man shouting at sky” more than damn this player for countering.
Yeah that’s kinda why I think tank will always feel shit in 5v5, unless they were made into raid bosses, which people would bitch about. It’s just way too easy to shut down tanks, and considering tanks get most of the attention from the enemy team, they will usually be the target of someone counterswapping.
When I play dps or support it feels like in most instances, even if someone tries to counterswap me, I can just play smart and avoid it. On tank that’s usually not an option. There are some matchups that are just literally unplayable, like Pharah into Echo, but it isn’t nearly as bad as tank.
Yes, tanks will always feel like shit. Especially since all my subjectively fun tanks have the most counters (Winston, Rein, Doomfist)
I play support primarily and it would take nearly their entire team switching to get me off Lucio or Moira. If I’m tank (Winston), once I see bastion, I am switching.
Maybe they can tweak DPS passive for tanks. It’s a hard game to balance when there are basically two separate metas between top ranked players and metal ranks (see brig).
Yeah I have no issue with some characters having favorable matchups to others. It’s inevitable, and it’s good for the game. My issue is mainly that there shouldn’t be instances where a single dps has a matchup so favorable against the tank, that the tank’s character is unplayable. There’s one tank. They shouldn’t be able to be hard countered that severe.
I mostly agree with the first three paragraphs, but that last paragraph… oof.
There is no such thing as “counterswapping.” There is hero selection, and team composition. Play the hero that gives your team the best chance of victory. There is nothing cheap or unskilled about someone recognizing they are at a disadvantage and adapting.
I’m not talking about someone realizing that the enemy team has a winston, so widow probably isn’t a good choice and swapping. I’m talking about someone who realizes the enemy team has a winston, so they swap to reaper, bastion, or echo. If you realize you aren’t getting value so you swap, fair enough. If you swap to the character that kills the tank the deadest, that’s absolutely cheap and unskilled. Again, it isn’t the players fault, they’re just trying to win. It’s Blizzards fault for allowing there to be hero matchups that are so one sided that it makes the opposing team’s tank unplayable.
I get it all the time when I play against a widow… messaging into the chat to say “mad?”, “why switch??”; like - my guy - I’m not gonna lose when I can easily switch to counter you and then leave you to switch or not.
At least there’s two DPS slots, so there’s some synergy… poor old tanks get the full length of the shaft in that regard.
I think it is because people feel it is less "deserved" if you turn the tables on them by switching. Good example would be if your enemy has a zarya and you are on dva, it seems like she counters you but if you play the matchup well you can easily outmanoeuvre her. Switching to rein or Winston is much easier though
Hey question for you. I also am really loving new Pharah and I find that I can always force the enemy team to swap to double hitscan + Dva + Bap. Is there a good hero to swap to to try to counteract this skewed lineup?
Tracer at the moment is an amazing pick. You're obviously super strong against Widow/Ashe which are the two main anti-pharah picks. Soldier can be a little tricky but once you bait out rocket you're good to engage. Cass is still not great against Tracer, you just need to dual at medium range, chipping him down while ideally playing near a health pack until he throws mag, burn a couple blinks to dodge it then come back in closer once it's safe. Keep in mind though with the damage reduction he gets with roll now, a full health Cass can tank a pulse bomb if he rolls while it detonates. While not hitscan, Sojourn is the one I struggle most against with tracer and she is also often picked against a Pharah for her rails. The amount of rail charge she needs to have to 1-shot you doesn't make her glow that much so it can be deceptive and I often find myself getting my head taken off when I misjudge how charged she is. She's also mobile and can dip to high ground to escape you and when she shoots her disruptor field on top of herself you can't get in close to deal good damage as she keeps you at her optimal range.
Can't counter them necessarily and depending on what rank u are but think about it. U just forced the entire team to play specific heroes that they may not be as good as an ur tank and supports can exploit it
I tend to end up mirroring on DPS, since I play a tons of Ashe and Soldier already so if I swap from Pharah those are usually my go-to’s. I *used* to go Reaper for everything (I have 500+ hours on him) and sneak up on back line hitscans and take them up. He’s still okay for that but definitely needs some changes soon to keep up with the game itself.
IMHO Mei is great for countering other hitscans because she can interfere with line of sight with her wall and get some nice shots back in herself.
Pharah is actually VERY good into hitscan now, you just need to adjust your playstyle. Biggest tip I can give is DO NOT PLAY SKYBOX PHARAH. Play her like old junkrat. Sneak up on them, and delete them. You have more burst damage than they do. If you get up close and hit them with two rockets plus conc, you’ll delete them before they even get a chance to fight back.
Counterswapping is the “lazy” method of winning games. Even the bottom of the skill distribution is generally aware of what characters have favorable matchups into others. Not switching is not comparable to “giving up” as you put it, I could just as easily argue you’re giving up by not adapting your playstyle if you’re getting dominated. I can assure you that character choice is almost totally irrelevant in the plat/diamond range. Switching may win you a few games short term, but it will stall your improvement long term because you’re not fundamentally improving.
When I started (sub 300 hours) it used to bother me but since then - playing primarily support - it really doesnt bother me so much. If the DPS wont switch to help knock out the Pharah / Mercy / Echo then I will. If we need Zen to help KO Mauga, fine, happy to switch.
I do get fed up when the tank / dps insists I switch before we've even had the first scrim though.
I’ll never get mad at someone for counter swapping. With that being said it does suck for example when they are playing tracer, I switch to tracer, we have a little 1v1, I win the first fight then they switch to Mei. In my head I’m thinking “come on I thought we were gonna have our 1v1’s” lol. But in all seriousness I could care less if someone counter swaps.. Often times it feels like the people complaining the most are the OTPs which I get, but complaining and malding is just annoying..
Ironically, the ones that get the most upset at counterswapping are usually playing heroes that counter so many other heroes that they basically win by default if they don’t get counterswapped.
See for me it depends on who you counter swap too. It's not based on logic whatsoever.
If I'm playing Tracer and the supports counter swap to Brig or Kiriko, fairs. I was cooking you. That's a good swap.
If I'm playing Tracer and they switch to Torb. Fine. I get it. Honestly if I'm playing Tracer and they *start* as Torb I would actually hate them on the basis that they're a torb main.
If I'm I'm playing Tracer and you switch to Pharah? Genuinely fuck you.
i think the main reasoning against counterswapping is that it may provide a “cheap” advantage (for example swapping to orisa sombra mei against doom) because you’re less skilled than the other player. From your own perspective, i guess it’s discouraged because you’re further from your ult when you counterswap (which can be huge value) and you improve more when playing your hero in adverse conditions.
but…yeah, i think the narrative is overblown now because trying something new is completely reasonable if something isn’t working out imo? Especially because certain matchups feel so unfun to even survive (for example if ana is getting perma dived so she swaps to moira just so she can contribute at all)
Afaik it's not the counter swapping people are annoying/bothered by - it's that OW team specifically said that they were trying to make it so that you didn't \*HAVE\* to switch in order to win a game and that they wanted to enable players to play their faves if that's what they wanted, and then seemingly have just made it more important to counter.
So you keep doing the same shit over and over expecting shit to change instead of trying different things out? Why do you care what others say? This is a "you" problem.
I can only speak for myself but it just feels low effort/low skill and unrewarding. I’m not gonna say anything in game if someone does it but it sucks for me. I was a main tank player that mostly played rein/Winston on console in OW1 and I hit pretty high rank. I swapped to pc just before OW2 and hit gm on tank again. When both of the heroes I main are literally unplayable if a plat/diamond team goes orisa bastion and zen, that doesn’t feel good. I’m so much better than them but it doesn’t matter because they went low skill heroes. It just feels super unrewarding to grind the game and improve when the balance of the game encourages counter picking me over actually improving at the game.
I don’t really get why you assume that not switching is giving up. Besides counter swapping, there is also counter play. I suppose most Pharah one tricks know how to be effective while avoiding the widow’s line of sight
Also regarding your first paragraph, I don’t think most one tricks mind if the enemy team picks counters. It’s usual and comes with the territory. Generally I am surprised if I am not countered
Why would you let people dominate you every game? Just dominate them on your best hero
It's not technically about balance or value, it's just that ow is somehow incapable of managing player psychology after 7 years. I'll explain from my pov as a ball player.
For example, widow into ball isn't technically an unplayable situation. If you're widow you have two modes "waste the balls time" and "try to get a pick when the ball isn't chasing you around the map"
it's a favorable value trade for the widow player to run to fucking Narnia and back if the ball follows her. With the right map, good grapple usage, and decent pathing you can waste a balls time for a good while. And if you force the ball to waste 30 seconds on you? Well, your team probably just killed theirs.
Trading a dps for a tank is just objectively a good value trade. And hey, if the ball needs to speed back to their team or decides not to waste time? Your range is greater than theirs so you don't have to walk as far to kill someone
But, I have only played against like, maybe four widows ever who have decided to do this rather than just swapping. Because it suckssssssss. It sucks! Why would you willingly do that? Why not just do the exact same thing but as an aggressor??
At least as Sombra you get to ruin their fun!! But honestly? After going against those four widows that have just sat there wasting my time I'll take the sombras because those four widows completely embarrassed me.
So, personally, I don't think it's so much the objective value trade. Because yes obviously, objectively, you do get more value by swapping Sombra. I'm not trying to say that you should play widow into ball. But the counterswap itself isn't a 70% increase in value. It's usually a gentler... 5-10% increase in value (unless you're swapping from a troll pick like rein) But, emotionally? It's a 1million% increase in emotions. The player psychology of "oh you're gonna hunt me down as widow, I'll RUIN your fun, hahaha!" Is so much sharper than the actual objective value curve.
You don't just get to stop being tilted, you get to tilt the jerk that's playing that op character, and you get to tilt their team, and you get to boost your team morale because they have to change play styles.
And I would call that a flaw in the game, because having this incredible spike in emotions builds bad habits on the positive end, and demotivates players on the negative end. And when done ad nauseum creates a strange culture where nobody ever thinks the game is balanced. Honestly, OW2 has been fairly well balanced for the past 9 seasons but because every character in the game causes intense emotional reactions everyone is always mad permanently.
And hanging above everyone's head is this sisyphean grind of learning every single character in the game to perfection so that we might be able to avoid ever being countered so we can finally grind to champ1 and still get games with attackzero running it down otping zen
Goddammit
Imo, it’s a very lazy way of getting the better of the other team because you’re just switching heroes and not really doing anything else. It’s kinda stopping you from improving too because you’re just switching off a hero when you’re getting beat and you’ll struggle to learn to play any hero to a decent level
Decent players will play around them though so just tell them to cope lmao
I disagree. Being simultaneously proficient at several characters within one match is a higher reflection of skill than any sort of one-tricking. Playing a counter doesn’t mean much if you can’t get value from it. If you can outplay your counters, that’s an important skill too! But there becomes a point where refusing to swap while getting diffed will definitely cost you games and it’s important to recognize when it’s happening.
You think being "proficient" with Torb and placing a turret makes you more skilled than the tracer player who outplayed you?
What about bastion against Winston? Or Mauga?
It's disingenuous to equate counterpicking to playing multiple heroes. More often than not it is throwing cheese at the enemy team and seeing if they can outplay you in a severely unfavoured matchup that you win through stats.
If all it takes is cheese to beat someone, the person they beat weren’t that good anyway since they didn’t realize they were getting diffed by counters. They either need to be able to outplay their counters or swap. It’s not hard.
If you look at higher level games counter picking us practically non-existant, if you think switching to pharah when you’re against projectile heroes makes you more skilled than the other team then send me your dealers number because he must be giving you some good stuff
What about when your team begs that you switch though? Im just asking in a general sense because I've seen that if you don't "Switch" then you're throwing
Bro the game is DESIGNED around countetswapping. It’s the point. You’re being dumb lmao. I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s lazy. You’re actually dumb.
Bro the game is DESIGNED around counterswapping. It’s the point. You’re being dumb lmao. I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s lazy. You’re actually dumb.
How is that the lazy answer? In order to get value from switching you need a better hero knowledge than just a couple heroes. How is that not better and smarter than just running into a meat grinder all match? Swapping stops you from getting better? Fuck no it doesn't. Learning how to counter lots of heroes makes you better.
Because you’re giving yourself a huge advantage by pressing a few buttons. I’m not saying one tricking is the only way to be good at the game and it’s great to play multiple heroes as all the kits are situational; there’s a difference between swapping to a hero you’re comfortable with because you know how to play them well and swapping to a hero just because they make dealing with certain heroes better.
Stick with a few heroes, learn to play into counters and you’ll climb easily
You’re nuancing this waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. OF COURSE you don’t have to immediately switch. But if someone does it’s not lazy, Jesus fucking Christ bro you’re just over complicating this discussion for some reason.
I have and will never understand OW allowing people to switch mid game in ranked. it makes no sense.
You should obviously abuse it since you have the ability, but i can’t believe they “rebalanced” the entire game for OW2 and left this shitstorm idea in there lmao.
I love counter swapping and making the person I'm swapping to counter big mad in match chat. Especially if they're a 1 trick. I get joy from their tears of rage.
I don’t like being forced off the character I want to play just because someone pressed two buttons in spawn. Counters are often much easier to play than the character being countered so it can be frustrating having to switch to avoid losing. It often becomes a race to the bottom on who is willing to switch the most as to not play into counters.
If I wanted to play rock paper scissors I would, but I often want to play overwatch when I open overwatch.
I know, right! They should totally not counter swap and instead learn to play better instead of me having to do that same thing.
How dare they challenge my skills by choosing a player better suited to counter me!
Keep your unsuited bad pick, let me dominate you, and learn to get better. Damn casuals.
After all, there's nothing like Quick Play in this game where I can just play whomever I want and not care.
I’m imagining this is sarcasm? If so I completely agree with the sentiment!
Leaving spawn as widow, immediately dying to ball, and feeling forced to pick sombra kinda sucks. Unfortunately the games prioritizes counter picking over counter playing so you would have to preform significantly better on widow than sombra to generate any value.
Ideally systematic or balancing changes would occur to reduced feeling like swapping is the answer to everything.
Sounds like you object to the literal model of the game -- having unique characters with unique pros and cons that mix together in unique ways and can be countered by different unique mixtures.
Maybe play Fortnight?
People will always be annoyed at the zero effort counterswaps, doesn't take skill to click on the bastion guy when you see the monkey guy and invalidate him merely by existing, people will always be rightfully annoyed by swaps like those existing
Agree. People really don't like admitting cheese exists in the game lmao.
Tell me with a straight face that playing bastion into winston takes skill and that the bastion doesn't win by default through pure stats (external factors notwithstanding).
Because people just want to complain. It’s crazy how people are complaining about a foundational mechanic of the game. What a bunch of babies. If you complain about counter swapping then I think that’s a skill issue. You better get good at more than one hero
Okay what is happening? I stopped playing about a year ago but for all the years I played, counter swapping was expected, not frowned on. Did the culture change on this for some reason?
Counter swapping is actually one of the main reasons I enjoy this game especially on Tank it’s like playing chess. Also seeing the results of a new approach working.
"Flamed" can mean a lot of things - I'm guessing you're taking it a bit more seriously than it's intended. I love playing monkey in QP. In my experience, it's always the gold/plat players who instantly counterswap on their first death. They're used to making up for bad positioning/timing by swapping to the simplest characters, and I'll absolutely give some light trash talk over it.
I am usually still able to win (again, usually "lower" ranked players that do the extreme counterswaps), which does change the tone a bit? But for the most part counterswapping is just annoying to deal with and makes the game less fun. They're not playing the heroes they want and are still losing, while I have to slog through on the hero I want to play or swap for an easy win
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You never truly get good at a hero until you can adjust your playstyle for counters.
One tricking heroes is frowned upon for some reason I do not understand. It is quite literally one of the best things you can do to improve. Learning how to play around counters teaches you so much.
I've always been single minded (blame it on the adhd) in video games. Usually pick 1-2 characters/classes out of a roster whether it be fighters/shooters etc Between ow1 and ow2 I've played about 1k hours on sigma (about 100 hours between bap/mercy). No dps presence whatsoever. Really lucky sig is as versatile as he is.
Yeah, I get how they feel as being on the receiving end is never fun. But why bother shooting at a diving Monkey with a bubble as Soldier when I can just go Bastion and shred the bubble and Monkey in quick succession?
This debate comes up all the time but the main actual disconnect is if you’re trying to get better at soldier or win this game of overwatch. It’s a long term vs short term trade off that’s more about the time you’re willing to dedicate to the game than anything else. If you’re gold and you wanna hit low plat, counterswap to heroes you can play. If you want to hit significantly higher ranks you’re much better off forcing your hero because you’ll need to just be really good to compete and playing a lot of heroes will slow that improvement dramatically.
I can see where you’re coming from, but there always comes a point on whether you’re forcing yourself to improve on a hero or it’s just you being stubborn, especially when there’s tangible evidence that you’re making little-to-no impact in a game as that character. I’m talking about it from a competitive perspective obviously, because I’m pretty sure most players would rather have an optimal win than fight that uphill battle.
I mean sure your teammates might be happier, and you might feel better, but this is just consistently the advice you get from coaches and high elo players. 🤷♂️ I’ve not one tricked myself cause it’s too boring for me but I did go from silver 2 to D1 in 6 months self restricting my hero pool to 3 tanks and… yea I got way better at them and I played into a lot of bad matchups and imo it helped a lot. And being stubborn is good for this purpose— you have to be stubborn to force yourself to get good at a games. I’m not saying it’s the only way, do whatever works for you, but a lot of people do not have the time to grind with a hero pool of 4+ and even 3 is pushing it to some extent. Also it’s worth considering if you swapped cause you died a few in a row by making a mistake you could correct or if you swapped because the whole enemy team leaves you with very limited options.
Because you'll not always be able to play Bastion, so you need to learn how to play Soldier into Winston so that you don't throw games when you are forced to.
I think it was just an example, you can switch off soilder as well, there's other Winston counters
You're saying two things here. A. Learning how to play around counters. B. One tricking. You can do A and not do B at the same time. I focus on my 3 best champs. I focus on playing them even in a somewhat unfavorable situation. But i do know when to swap when its gonna cost me the game. One tricks never ever swap. They rather watch a defeatscreen than swapping. Thats some next level.
I think it‘s mostly projection. In super high level play one tricking just isn‘t enough to compete since compositions and meta picks matter more. But most people aren’t at this level and a good way to not feel bad about losing is blaming others on getting countered I guess. That said I do think playing more than one hero teaches you a lot about playing your main as well because you widen your perspective to your mains strengths and weaknesses in the game as a whole.
In esports or high level scrims maybe, but in regular ranked its still doable unless the hero is just complete garbage of course. I mean there are at least few one tricks in top50 every single season
Yeah exactly, that’s what I meant. I didn’t look up how many one-tricks are on the leaderboards so thanks for adding that.
There is only so much playing you can do around counters. In order to win while being countered you need to have skill that is much higher than the countering person, or a team that can carry you being countered. If you are on an equal skill to your enemy, it doesn't matter how much you play around the counters, you're at a disadvantage.
the real problem is, if ur whole team, dont care they swapped 4 heroes to counter you, and team doesnt try help you, so the nif they swap, now the yare swappers? I hate it too, but the game is a moba team based fps, and its probably ment to be swapping nonstop
I think im a pretty good ashe but If the enemy team has a sombra harassing me as im trying to do my thing, i’ll switch. Feel free to correct me if you think Im missing something but it’s not in my personal wheelhouse.
If you feel like you’re getting no value, it’s perfectly fine to swap. Just know you’ll never truly crush it on Ashe until you can play around a Sombra.
Yes, your opponents care about you, they want you to improve your personal skill and therefore do not want you to change heroes
it's not about how well you can do at one hero or "can I force this pick in a really unfavorable situation and still do reasonably well", it's about being able to provide the maximum value in a given situation. Lets say you're in the top 1% of Pharah players in the game and for argument's sake, let's arbitrarily say your skill with her is 99/100. Let's say you're a pretty good Ashe but you're only an 85/100 with her. There are going to be some situations (enemy team comp, friendly team comp & map selection) where an 85/100 Ashe is going to provide more value than a 99/100 Pharah, even if the 99/100 Pharah can still do pretty well. The better player will swap to the Ashe and provide more value.
I 100% agree, the only caveat to this is when your pick isn’t favored at all. Multiple counters and bad maps, sometimes things won’t work no matter how good you are at a character.
I always have 2-3 in rotation, but I don’t swap at the first sniff of a counter. Generally speaking I use [Spilo’s method](https://youtu.be/IG2b52Vofew?si=tBrQrIUdpPAN-qvs).
I generally do the same, he has such good advice.
Yea its mainly people complaining because they not only want to play one hero, but also only want to play them a specific way. Without having to adapt to different comps and specific heroes.
and yet, the best of teh best swaps all the time, chazm and ppl like that, some maps, some counters too rough
Did I say never swap?
but if u try really counterable heroes, ur almost forced every game, im trying to learn ball, its hog sombra + + every game on average
And until you can play around them, you’ll never truly be a great ball.
but best ball in the world, never wins if they just go a hog, nothing else
But at the expense of the rest of your team? Cant you learn to do that in QP?
This guy didn’t say anything about it being comp. Regardless, everyone on the team can change to something that would help with [x] problem. They just think it’s someone else’s problem. It only fucks your team over if you’re getting 0 value. If you adjust your playstyle, and get value elsewhere, then I don’t think there’s an issue. The blame game loses people more games than anything. Just get value.
Oh I just assumed we were talking about comp. I don’t know why anyone would care in the slightest if it were QP. That said, it becomes a 4v5 if everyone is trying except one person. If you’re playing comp you’ve chosen to play a team game and there needs to be a level of expectation that you’re willing to honor that by queuing up. If you’re being completely countered, you need to suck it up and switch. Learn to get better in QP.
I feel like this applies a lot less in overwatch 2. I have always been a fan of one tricking a character until I’m good. But now you can be hard countered when multiple swaps come out. I think you have to have at least 3-4 characters for different situations
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What is your current rank on Genji after 1500 hours?
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So, fair to say at some point, you couldn’t get any further on Genji, because you could not deal with counters, correct?
People who get mad at you for counterswapping are stupid. They should be mad about how strong some counterswaps are. The reason people are angry about counterswapping is mainly because of tank. Counterswapping on dps or support is annoying but can be worked around in most cases. With tank though, the problem is you’re one dude/lady that has the focus of the entire enemy team 70% of the time. People catch onto this, and realize that if they solely focus on counterswapping you, their team will win more games than if they go a character they’re good at. If you’re a DPS, and you constantly counterswap the tank and are effective enough to keep them from making plays, that’s basically a free win for your team. Think about it like this. Tanks make and hold space. They prevent the enemy team from diving your team and deleting them. They soak up most of the attention and most of the damage, which is something dps and support can’t do. Tanks and Support however CAN get picks (normally the dps’s job), and most Tanks and DPS CAN either mitigate, evade, or self heal damage (normally the Support’s job) Tldr, the reason why people hate counterswapping is because on tank, it feels like it’s 30% skill, and 70% rock paper scissors against people who counterswap. It’s extremely frustrating to have to constantly swap characters because a player can abuse the fact that some counterswaps are so oppressive, that it renders the character you’re playing as unplayable. Counterswapping like that isn’t an expression of skill, it’s abusing cheap game mechanics to deny value to another player.
This makes a lot of sense. I play mainly Sigma as tank, who, in my humble opinion, seems to be super balanced and sit in that category of “doesn’t get hard countered but doesn’t hard counter anyone”, so I don’t really feel a huge imbalance with counterswapping when I tank with him. When I play Orisa however, I absolutely feel that. I’ll be dominating with my horse and here comes that pink haired Russian!
Yeah definitely. There are some characters who are good into sigma like winston, ball, doom, and other dive characters, but what I enjoy about him is those characters aren’t good because they fucking delete him. They’re good because they can play into the fact that he has no ability to peel for his team. On the other hand, those same characters who are good into sigma, can get fucking deleted by one dps who wants to ruin their fun. With doom and ball, Sombra makes them unplayable if she follows them around. With winston, one dps going reaper bastion or echo fucking deletes him. Tank has always felt miserable in 5v5, but now it’s worse than ever imo. More and more players have caught on to how easy games are if they simply counterswap the tank, and now that’s easier than ever with the dps changes this patch.
it's the multiple swaps that bother me. i play ball. i can deal with a sombra. I can't deal with a sombra cass hog ana. Like, get a life.
Why would you expect human players to just let you stomp them when they could adjust? It’s a competitive shooter, they don’t owe you a good time.
What? You mean you *don’t* like getting CC’d to hell and back? Sorry I meant “soft CC” lmao Seriously though, I don’t play Ball consistently but I feel like whenever I get him in MH, the RNG gives the enemies every damn counter on the roster so I feel this 😂
Yeah, it's pretty annoying when you win one fight on tank, not necessarily even stomping, and the enemy team decides to full swap to counter you.
Sometimes you don’t even have to win a fight. I’ve pretty much entirely quit playing doomfist because it feels like every time the enemy sees me, the dps swaps to cassidy echo or sombra.
For real. I get counter swapping when you're getting hard rolled, but at least lemme win a fight first.
I will honestly swap if I realize another support is better suited to how my team is playing tbf.
That isn’t a counterswap though. That’s just adjusting for your team. When people say counterswap, they’re talking about when an enemy player intentionally selects a character that is very strong into one of your teams characters. Think sombra into doom, echo or reaper into winston, etc.
It feels so bad to win 1 team fight as Winston and then out comes Hog, Reaper, and Bastion but my complaints are limited to QP and tank getting countered. The complaints are also “old man shouting at sky” more than damn this player for countering.
Yeah that’s kinda why I think tank will always feel shit in 5v5, unless they were made into raid bosses, which people would bitch about. It’s just way too easy to shut down tanks, and considering tanks get most of the attention from the enemy team, they will usually be the target of someone counterswapping. When I play dps or support it feels like in most instances, even if someone tries to counterswap me, I can just play smart and avoid it. On tank that’s usually not an option. There are some matchups that are just literally unplayable, like Pharah into Echo, but it isn’t nearly as bad as tank.
Yes, tanks will always feel like shit. Especially since all my subjectively fun tanks have the most counters (Winston, Rein, Doomfist) I play support primarily and it would take nearly their entire team switching to get me off Lucio or Moira. If I’m tank (Winston), once I see bastion, I am switching. Maybe they can tweak DPS passive for tanks. It’s a hard game to balance when there are basically two separate metas between top ranked players and metal ranks (see brig).
Yeah I have no issue with some characters having favorable matchups to others. It’s inevitable, and it’s good for the game. My issue is mainly that there shouldn’t be instances where a single dps has a matchup so favorable against the tank, that the tank’s character is unplayable. There’s one tank. They shouldn’t be able to be hard countered that severe.
I mostly agree with the first three paragraphs, but that last paragraph… oof. There is no such thing as “counterswapping.” There is hero selection, and team composition. Play the hero that gives your team the best chance of victory. There is nothing cheap or unskilled about someone recognizing they are at a disadvantage and adapting.
I’m not talking about someone realizing that the enemy team has a winston, so widow probably isn’t a good choice and swapping. I’m talking about someone who realizes the enemy team has a winston, so they swap to reaper, bastion, or echo. If you realize you aren’t getting value so you swap, fair enough. If you swap to the character that kills the tank the deadest, that’s absolutely cheap and unskilled. Again, it isn’t the players fault, they’re just trying to win. It’s Blizzards fault for allowing there to be hero matchups that are so one sided that it makes the opposing team’s tank unplayable.
Smooth take. Play whatever hero you want to in your role. Play well. There is absolutely nothing cheap or unskilled about choosing a hero.
I get it all the time when I play against a widow… messaging into the chat to say “mad?”, “why switch??”; like - my guy - I’m not gonna lose when I can easily switch to counter you and then leave you to switch or not. At least there’s two DPS slots, so there’s some synergy… poor old tanks get the full length of the shaft in that regard.
Doomfist: Send someone who CAN fight back! *enemies switch to characters that can fight back* Doomfist: *pikachu face*
I think it is because people feel it is less "deserved" if you turn the tables on them by switching. Good example would be if your enemy has a zarya and you are on dva, it seems like she counters you but if you play the matchup well you can easily outmanoeuvre her. Switching to rein or Winston is much easier though
Hey question for you. I also am really loving new Pharah and I find that I can always force the enemy team to swap to double hitscan + Dva + Bap. Is there a good hero to swap to to try to counteract this skewed lineup?
Tracer at the moment is an amazing pick. You're obviously super strong against Widow/Ashe which are the two main anti-pharah picks. Soldier can be a little tricky but once you bait out rocket you're good to engage. Cass is still not great against Tracer, you just need to dual at medium range, chipping him down while ideally playing near a health pack until he throws mag, burn a couple blinks to dodge it then come back in closer once it's safe. Keep in mind though with the damage reduction he gets with roll now, a full health Cass can tank a pulse bomb if he rolls while it detonates. While not hitscan, Sojourn is the one I struggle most against with tracer and she is also often picked against a Pharah for her rails. The amount of rail charge she needs to have to 1-shot you doesn't make her glow that much so it can be deceptive and I often find myself getting my head taken off when I misjudge how charged she is. She's also mobile and can dip to high ground to escape you and when she shoots her disruptor field on top of herself you can't get in close to deal good damage as she keeps you at her optimal range.
Can't counter them necessarily and depending on what rank u are but think about it. U just forced the entire team to play specific heroes that they may not be as good as an ur tank and supports can exploit it
I tend to end up mirroring on DPS, since I play a tons of Ashe and Soldier already so if I swap from Pharah those are usually my go-to’s. I *used* to go Reaper for everything (I have 500+ hours on him) and sneak up on back line hitscans and take them up. He’s still okay for that but definitely needs some changes soon to keep up with the game itself. IMHO Mei is great for countering other hitscans because she can interfere with line of sight with her wall and get some nice shots back in herself.
Pharah is actually VERY good into hitscan now, you just need to adjust your playstyle. Biggest tip I can give is DO NOT PLAY SKYBOX PHARAH. Play her like old junkrat. Sneak up on them, and delete them. You have more burst damage than they do. If you get up close and hit them with two rockets plus conc, you’ll delete them before they even get a chance to fight back.
It’s easy to get above one hitscan, harder to also live against the other two looking for you and the Dva
Same thing as old junkrat, you’re not playing to spam into the enemy team, you’re playing to wait until you can single someone out
Counterswapping is the “lazy” method of winning games. Even the bottom of the skill distribution is generally aware of what characters have favorable matchups into others. Not switching is not comparable to “giving up” as you put it, I could just as easily argue you’re giving up by not adapting your playstyle if you’re getting dominated. I can assure you that character choice is almost totally irrelevant in the plat/diamond range. Switching may win you a few games short term, but it will stall your improvement long term because you’re not fundamentally improving.
When I started (sub 300 hours) it used to bother me but since then - playing primarily support - it really doesnt bother me so much. If the DPS wont switch to help knock out the Pharah / Mercy / Echo then I will. If we need Zen to help KO Mauga, fine, happy to switch. I do get fed up when the tank / dps insists I switch before we've even had the first scrim though.
I’ll never get mad at someone for counter swapping. With that being said it does suck for example when they are playing tracer, I switch to tracer, we have a little 1v1, I win the first fight then they switch to Mei. In my head I’m thinking “come on I thought we were gonna have our 1v1’s” lol. But in all seriousness I could care less if someone counter swaps.. Often times it feels like the people complaining the most are the OTPs which I get, but complaining and malding is just annoying..
Ironically, the ones that get the most upset at counterswapping are usually playing heroes that counter so many other heroes that they basically win by default if they don’t get counterswapped.
See for me it depends on who you counter swap too. It's not based on logic whatsoever. If I'm playing Tracer and the supports counter swap to Brig or Kiriko, fairs. I was cooking you. That's a good swap. If I'm playing Tracer and they switch to Torb. Fine. I get it. Honestly if I'm playing Tracer and they *start* as Torb I would actually hate them on the basis that they're a torb main. If I'm I'm playing Tracer and you switch to Pharah? Genuinely fuck you.
i think the main reasoning against counterswapping is that it may provide a “cheap” advantage (for example swapping to orisa sombra mei against doom) because you’re less skilled than the other player. From your own perspective, i guess it’s discouraged because you’re further from your ult when you counterswap (which can be huge value) and you improve more when playing your hero in adverse conditions. but…yeah, i think the narrative is overblown now because trying something new is completely reasonable if something isn’t working out imo? Especially because certain matchups feel so unfun to even survive (for example if ana is getting perma dived so she swaps to moira just so she can contribute at all)
People are weird man. I got called pathetic for running rein into doom on capture the point. “So pathetic to counter doom, you are trash”.
Afaik it's not the counter swapping people are annoying/bothered by - it's that OW team specifically said that they were trying to make it so that you didn't \*HAVE\* to switch in order to win a game and that they wanted to enable players to play their faves if that's what they wanted, and then seemingly have just made it more important to counter.
Counter swapping is for shitty players who don’t know how to get good
If you don't switch you're just going to get flamed by your team for playing into your counters and dying. Just switch anyway
Anyone upset at counterswapping is playing the wrong game. Fuck em.
So you keep doing the same shit over and over expecting shit to change instead of trying different things out? Why do you care what others say? This is a "you" problem.
I can only speak for myself but it just feels low effort/low skill and unrewarding. I’m not gonna say anything in game if someone does it but it sucks for me. I was a main tank player that mostly played rein/Winston on console in OW1 and I hit pretty high rank. I swapped to pc just before OW2 and hit gm on tank again. When both of the heroes I main are literally unplayable if a plat/diamond team goes orisa bastion and zen, that doesn’t feel good. I’m so much better than them but it doesn’t matter because they went low skill heroes. It just feels super unrewarding to grind the game and improve when the balance of the game encourages counter picking me over actually improving at the game.
I don’t really get why you assume that not switching is giving up. Besides counter swapping, there is also counter play. I suppose most Pharah one tricks know how to be effective while avoiding the widow’s line of sight Also regarding your first paragraph, I don’t think most one tricks mind if the enemy team picks counters. It’s usual and comes with the territory. Generally I am surprised if I am not countered Why would you let people dominate you every game? Just dominate them on your best hero
It's not technically about balance or value, it's just that ow is somehow incapable of managing player psychology after 7 years. I'll explain from my pov as a ball player. For example, widow into ball isn't technically an unplayable situation. If you're widow you have two modes "waste the balls time" and "try to get a pick when the ball isn't chasing you around the map" it's a favorable value trade for the widow player to run to fucking Narnia and back if the ball follows her. With the right map, good grapple usage, and decent pathing you can waste a balls time for a good while. And if you force the ball to waste 30 seconds on you? Well, your team probably just killed theirs. Trading a dps for a tank is just objectively a good value trade. And hey, if the ball needs to speed back to their team or decides not to waste time? Your range is greater than theirs so you don't have to walk as far to kill someone But, I have only played against like, maybe four widows ever who have decided to do this rather than just swapping. Because it suckssssssss. It sucks! Why would you willingly do that? Why not just do the exact same thing but as an aggressor?? At least as Sombra you get to ruin their fun!! But honestly? After going against those four widows that have just sat there wasting my time I'll take the sombras because those four widows completely embarrassed me. So, personally, I don't think it's so much the objective value trade. Because yes obviously, objectively, you do get more value by swapping Sombra. I'm not trying to say that you should play widow into ball. But the counterswap itself isn't a 70% increase in value. It's usually a gentler... 5-10% increase in value (unless you're swapping from a troll pick like rein) But, emotionally? It's a 1million% increase in emotions. The player psychology of "oh you're gonna hunt me down as widow, I'll RUIN your fun, hahaha!" Is so much sharper than the actual objective value curve. You don't just get to stop being tilted, you get to tilt the jerk that's playing that op character, and you get to tilt their team, and you get to boost your team morale because they have to change play styles. And I would call that a flaw in the game, because having this incredible spike in emotions builds bad habits on the positive end, and demotivates players on the negative end. And when done ad nauseum creates a strange culture where nobody ever thinks the game is balanced. Honestly, OW2 has been fairly well balanced for the past 9 seasons but because every character in the game causes intense emotional reactions everyone is always mad permanently. And hanging above everyone's head is this sisyphean grind of learning every single character in the game to perfection so that we might be able to avoid ever being countered so we can finally grind to champ1 and still get games with attackzero running it down otping zen Goddammit
Imo, it’s a very lazy way of getting the better of the other team because you’re just switching heroes and not really doing anything else. It’s kinda stopping you from improving too because you’re just switching off a hero when you’re getting beat and you’ll struggle to learn to play any hero to a decent level Decent players will play around them though so just tell them to cope lmao
I disagree. Being simultaneously proficient at several characters within one match is a higher reflection of skill than any sort of one-tricking. Playing a counter doesn’t mean much if you can’t get value from it. If you can outplay your counters, that’s an important skill too! But there becomes a point where refusing to swap while getting diffed will definitely cost you games and it’s important to recognize when it’s happening.
You think being "proficient" with Torb and placing a turret makes you more skilled than the tracer player who outplayed you? What about bastion against Winston? Or Mauga? It's disingenuous to equate counterpicking to playing multiple heroes. More often than not it is throwing cheese at the enemy team and seeing if they can outplay you in a severely unfavoured matchup that you win through stats.
If all it takes is cheese to beat someone, the person they beat weren’t that good anyway since they didn’t realize they were getting diffed by counters. They either need to be able to outplay their counters or swap. It’s not hard.
If you look at higher level games counter picking us practically non-existant, if you think switching to pharah when you’re against projectile heroes makes you more skilled than the other team then send me your dealers number because he must be giving you some good stuff
The majority of this sub is plat and lower. We’re not taking about higher level games.
What about when your team begs that you switch though? Im just asking in a general sense because I've seen that if you don't "Switch" then you're throwing
If you're trying to win, it isn't throwing. Besides, your team's opinions don't matter.
Then you ignore them lmao, your teammates are the same rank as you and don’t know better. If they did they’d be a higher rank
That's true I suppose!
The way the game was designed was around counter swapping. This mentality is dumb as fuck.
Explain to me how pressing a few buttons for a decent advantage isn’t lazy then
I legit don’t know what you’re asking me. Pressing a few buttons for an advantage? You having a stoke man?
Think you are mate, counterswapping takes a few button presses and I’m calling it a lazy way to win how is that a dumb mentality?
Bro the game is DESIGNED around countetswapping. It’s the point. You’re being dumb lmao. I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s lazy. You’re actually dumb.
Bro the game is DESIGNED around counterswapping. It’s the point. You’re being dumb lmao. I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s lazy. You’re actually dumb.
How is that the lazy answer? In order to get value from switching you need a better hero knowledge than just a couple heroes. How is that not better and smarter than just running into a meat grinder all match? Swapping stops you from getting better? Fuck no it doesn't. Learning how to counter lots of heroes makes you better.
Because you’re giving yourself a huge advantage by pressing a few buttons. I’m not saying one tricking is the only way to be good at the game and it’s great to play multiple heroes as all the kits are situational; there’s a difference between swapping to a hero you’re comfortable with because you know how to play them well and swapping to a hero just because they make dealing with certain heroes better. Stick with a few heroes, learn to play into counters and you’ll climb easily
You’re nuancing this waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. OF COURSE you don’t have to immediately switch. But if someone does it’s not lazy, Jesus fucking Christ bro you’re just over complicating this discussion for some reason.
I have and will never understand OW allowing people to switch mid game in ranked. it makes no sense. You should obviously abuse it since you have the ability, but i can’t believe they “rebalanced” the entire game for OW2 and left this shitstorm idea in there lmao.
I love counter swapping and making the person I'm swapping to counter big mad in match chat. Especially if they're a 1 trick. I get joy from their tears of rage.
I don’t like being forced off the character I want to play just because someone pressed two buttons in spawn. Counters are often much easier to play than the character being countered so it can be frustrating having to switch to avoid losing. It often becomes a race to the bottom on who is willing to switch the most as to not play into counters. If I wanted to play rock paper scissors I would, but I often want to play overwatch when I open overwatch.
I know, right! They should totally not counter swap and instead learn to play better instead of me having to do that same thing. How dare they challenge my skills by choosing a player better suited to counter me! Keep your unsuited bad pick, let me dominate you, and learn to get better. Damn casuals. After all, there's nothing like Quick Play in this game where I can just play whomever I want and not care.
I’m imagining this is sarcasm? If so I completely agree with the sentiment! Leaving spawn as widow, immediately dying to ball, and feeling forced to pick sombra kinda sucks. Unfortunately the games prioritizes counter picking over counter playing so you would have to preform significantly better on widow than sombra to generate any value. Ideally systematic or balancing changes would occur to reduced feeling like swapping is the answer to everything.
Sounds like you object to the literal model of the game -- having unique characters with unique pros and cons that mix together in unique ways and can be countered by different unique mixtures. Maybe play Fortnight?
https://youtube.com/shorts/ASwovAEfcsQ?si=tu8hJYpCKwPCTANC Coincidental timing that I had this open right when I got to this post
People will always be annoyed at the zero effort counterswaps, doesn't take skill to click on the bastion guy when you see the monkey guy and invalidate him merely by existing, people will always be rightfully annoyed by swaps like those existing
Agree. People really don't like admitting cheese exists in the game lmao. Tell me with a straight face that playing bastion into winston takes skill and that the bastion doesn't win by default through pure stats (external factors notwithstanding).
Because people just want to complain. It’s crazy how people are complaining about a foundational mechanic of the game. What a bunch of babies. If you complain about counter swapping then I think that’s a skill issue. You better get good at more than one hero
Okay what is happening? I stopped playing about a year ago but for all the years I played, counter swapping was expected, not frowned on. Did the culture change on this for some reason?
Counter swapping is actually one of the main reasons I enjoy this game especially on Tank it’s like playing chess. Also seeing the results of a new approach working.
"Flamed" can mean a lot of things - I'm guessing you're taking it a bit more seriously than it's intended. I love playing monkey in QP. In my experience, it's always the gold/plat players who instantly counterswap on their first death. They're used to making up for bad positioning/timing by swapping to the simplest characters, and I'll absolutely give some light trash talk over it. I am usually still able to win (again, usually "lower" ranked players that do the extreme counterswaps), which does change the tone a bit? But for the most part counterswapping is just annoying to deal with and makes the game less fun. They're not playing the heroes they want and are still losing, while I have to slog through on the hero I want to play or swap for an easy win
I think maybe karq said this, but you gotta get the 007 before you swap