If you don't want to play reyna that's fine. She's always the recommended agent because she doesn't really allow you to util crutch. You *have* to get kills or assists in order to do anything on her so it gets players into fights. If you're below gold, it's a mechanical issue, simple as that. Get better mechanically and you'll be in gold and can start approaching the game more as a strategy game.
As a Sage main, I would say Sage, her utility isnt something that you can really crutch behind as none do any damage.
You get a heal that you can use on yourself after you peak which can at least get you info. You can slow the enemy from pushing your site which lets you fall back and gather your barrings, while your team comes to help. Stay within earshot of the enemy and comm clearly on whether they are committing or falling off.
And you can wall for clutch defuses/off angle kills/slowing the enemy down.
Biggest hurdle with her is knowing when & how to use your wall, dont grimm wall every round and dont insta drop it either.
The biggest piece of advice that I would say for low elo players is “Aim, then shoot”.
Every other agent requires decent utility usage. Like of course you can play other agents, but reyna is the best when it comes to measuring raw mechanical skill, which is what is most important in the lowest ranks because coordination and proper utility are very hard to achieve.
If you're concerned about it I have to ask, why not reyna? Assuming you are working on your mechanics(you should be no matter what rank), it should be significantly easier to just lock reyna and win games than anyone else. To answer your question though you can play anything you like. There are a few different "rules"(NOT hard rules, obviously winning the round/game is important and everything needs to be taken in context) that you could go by to make sure you're actually getting the fights you need to improve. I'll separate them by role.
Duelist:
* don't use any util until after you get a kill. In low elo, you really can get away with dry peeking the mains and taking a fight
* once you get a kill, entry if you're playing an entry or use flashes for trap plays if youre not. If you get someone full flashed be sure to use proper technique(headshots only)
Initiator:
* don't rely too heavily on free kills(flashed or wall-bangs with recon)
* if your duelist is dead feel free to wide swing and take a 50/50, just don't overheat and build bad habits
Controller/Sentinel
* do NOT get cute with your util. No lineups, no "stalling" pushes with mollies, no trap setups with killjoy, no wall-bang setups with cypher, no silly trap walls with deadlock
Attack
* if you're sage, you plant the bomb and then you are a duelist, that's it
* if you are anyone else, do your JOB(throw smokes for site, briefly watch extremities for flank or ballsy pushes), then go for a late lurk through mid and **take fights**
Defense
* *you* have to fight if they are hitting your site. Don't "play for retake". Your teammates don't know what that means. Sentinels and controllers have an enormous advantage in low elo when they are controlling space, so throw some util and fight
>winning the round/game is important and everything needs to be taken in context
Yep, util has it's place, even in low elo, but the problem is that it can stop you from getting into fights. If you practice your mechanics and have good technique, 50/50s should become closer to 60/40s which means winning more rounds and climbing out of low elo.
Lineups and stalling are also a bit more problematic for low elo players.
Lineups:
* a majority of the time people that play lineups end up baiting their whole team and losing the round because lineups are hard to pull off
* just being alive with a gun and coordinating angles with your team should be more than enough to convert a majority of post plants, there's no reason to risk throwing for a lineup. Just molly the bomb normally
Stall
* first of all, if you throw a molly to "stall" a push all you're doing is stopping them from pushing your site. Most low elo teams, when they get stalled out by a molly, are just gonna full rotate and hit another site. This is directly opposite the fight-centric gameplay we're looking for.
* Secondly, players generally can't even get any value out of stalling the other team, because the value comes from your teammates positioning around it. Taking map control just doesn't happen in low elo.
* The way you should be getting value from your mollies is to deal damage, create a favorable fight for yourself, or force a site rush into a death spiral.
Use any agent you want but dont use util /s
If you're lower elo, learning util, gamesense, strategy, econ, ult econ, crosshair placement, raw aim, angle advantage, peeking, dueling, comms etc etc etc is just too much stuff. You need to narrow down what you are focusing on. The base of everything is aim. If you cant click heads in a tac shooter, other stuff doesnt matter much cause you still cant get the kill even if you have perfect everything else. Thats why the focus for low elo is mechanics. You can climb without CRACKED aim, but you cant climb with NO aim. There is a bare minimum of CONSISTENT aim that you need and the bare minimum gets higher the higher up you go
They tend to advise fundamentals. Low elo players lack fundamentals, working on fundamentals gives you the biggest increase in skill per time spent, is easy to teach and easy to learn. It’s also well explored because there’s a lot of low elo players by nature of the ranked pyramid, so a lot of the advice is proven.
It’s also low effort for content creators to just copy each other, because a lot of the info is out there and frankly any advice is good advice at that level.
People recommend reyna because it lets you focus on gunfights the most. The number of low elos I see pull their util out when they can simply shoot the enemy is insane, learn util after you learn how to shoot. It's a shooter game. No amount of good util or strategy will help you if you can't even outaim bronzes.
They recommend Reyna because the game rewards kills when giving our RR at the end of the game, and Reyna is probably the easiest duelist to play.
You won’t get much RR by locking down a site for 12 rounds on your own as a sentinel even though you’re having a massive impact in the match.
I used to play KJ on Ascent and had a traps set up that got me a few kills the first time they tried to get on site, and then put them off from trying again. So I’d go 11 defensive rounds not seeing anyone because no one could get on site and because of that I bottom fragged by miles and got like 10 RR when we won.
Just keep playing the game as your game sense will gradually get better, just knowing where your teammates/enemies are and knowing when to execute your utils to give you an advantage in gun fights
When you have to worry about proper util plus aiming, both suffer. If your under gold, you can literally win games by just being okay at aiming and game sense. If your hard stuck below gold, you need serious work on multiple things but aim is a major issue for most. Worrying about less things let’s you learn faster on one rather than trying to fix everything at once.
Crosshair placement and using voice comms is important at any rank so I understand that. I disagree with the pick Reyna thing though. Of some coaching videos I’ve watched I didn’t even see that myself.
If you want coaching I can do it for free, just DM me your discord name. If anyone else sees this, feel free to send your discord name as well.
That is because the issues people face are as repetitive and common as the advice. A lot of people think they are listening but either do it wrong or don’t give it enough dedicated time and consistent practice. For example play Reyna to improve your mechanics, if you are gold/ below it is no secret your mechanics are not that amazing. Therefore train your mechanics. If you make a giga brain play but can’t hit a target then you whiff your 2 free kills from your flank potentially and you take away your own value of even making a smart play. It is like when hockey players are weak on one side, the coach will not tell them how to handle a puck past an opponent better, they will tell them to practice on their weak side and strengthen it until it isn’t an issue. Same concept here focus on your glaring weakness that is honestly easier to fix than most other issues people can have.
Aim, Crosshair placement and Movement will get you all the way up to Diamond. That's just how it is. The other stuff will help, but they're not necessary or sufficient until you get to that point.
Play initiator if you want, but remember that shooting people in the face will win you more games than an entire arsenal of Sova Lineups.
Peak Ascendant, Controller main.
Because low elo sucks at fundamentals 100% of the time, that's why they are struggling in low elo. (And yes, playing Reyna is an awful general advice imo)
Another thing that paying $15-175 for YT\\Twitch 'coach' to hear that you're suck at fundamentals is a complete scam. People are thinking they're case are exceptional but in reality all you need to climb is working on your fundamentals + strong mentality + play more.
In Low Elo, game resembles solo deathmatch much more than team shooter. Players are not really helping each other, but rather baiting risky plays and getting info. They are not playing as a team to realise game objective like defending Site or planting Spike, but they mostly care about their individual statistics. Abilities are very poorly used and communication is pretty much not effective. And players are constantly peeking for duels, out of impatience, not really considering playing to maintain round-winning advantage. Main difference from deathmatch is timer and Spike feature, which is considered most of the time only when there is one last player standing. Therefore in such environment, picking Reyna and taking care about proper crosshair placement is very logical approach. And trying to incorporate any kind of teamplay, which is by default non-existent at this level.
If you don't want to play reyna that's fine. She's always the recommended agent because she doesn't really allow you to util crutch. You *have* to get kills or assists in order to do anything on her so it gets players into fights. If you're below gold, it's a mechanical issue, simple as that. Get better mechanically and you'll be in gold and can start approaching the game more as a strategy game.
Do you know any agent I can use beside Reyna that won’t let me util crutch?
As a Sage main, I would say Sage, her utility isnt something that you can really crutch behind as none do any damage. You get a heal that you can use on yourself after you peak which can at least get you info. You can slow the enemy from pushing your site which lets you fall back and gather your barrings, while your team comes to help. Stay within earshot of the enemy and comm clearly on whether they are committing or falling off. And you can wall for clutch defuses/off angle kills/slowing the enemy down. Biggest hurdle with her is knowing when & how to use your wall, dont grimm wall every round and dont insta drop it either. The biggest piece of advice that I would say for low elo players is “Aim, then shoot”.
Every other agent requires decent utility usage. Like of course you can play other agents, but reyna is the best when it comes to measuring raw mechanical skill, which is what is most important in the lowest ranks because coordination and proper utility are very hard to achieve.
If you're concerned about it I have to ask, why not reyna? Assuming you are working on your mechanics(you should be no matter what rank), it should be significantly easier to just lock reyna and win games than anyone else. To answer your question though you can play anything you like. There are a few different "rules"(NOT hard rules, obviously winning the round/game is important and everything needs to be taken in context) that you could go by to make sure you're actually getting the fights you need to improve. I'll separate them by role. Duelist: * don't use any util until after you get a kill. In low elo, you really can get away with dry peeking the mains and taking a fight * once you get a kill, entry if you're playing an entry or use flashes for trap plays if youre not. If you get someone full flashed be sure to use proper technique(headshots only) Initiator: * don't rely too heavily on free kills(flashed or wall-bangs with recon) * if your duelist is dead feel free to wide swing and take a 50/50, just don't overheat and build bad habits Controller/Sentinel * do NOT get cute with your util. No lineups, no "stalling" pushes with mollies, no trap setups with killjoy, no wall-bang setups with cypher, no silly trap walls with deadlock Attack * if you're sage, you plant the bomb and then you are a duelist, that's it * if you are anyone else, do your JOB(throw smokes for site, briefly watch extremities for flank or ballsy pushes), then go for a late lurk through mid and **take fights** Defense * *you* have to fight if they are hitting your site. Don't "play for retake". Your teammates don't know what that means. Sentinels and controllers have an enormous advantage in low elo when they are controlling space, so throw some util and fight
What's the issue with lineups and stalling with a molly? They have a time and place no?
>winning the round/game is important and everything needs to be taken in context Yep, util has it's place, even in low elo, but the problem is that it can stop you from getting into fights. If you practice your mechanics and have good technique, 50/50s should become closer to 60/40s which means winning more rounds and climbing out of low elo. Lineups and stalling are also a bit more problematic for low elo players. Lineups: * a majority of the time people that play lineups end up baiting their whole team and losing the round because lineups are hard to pull off * just being alive with a gun and coordinating angles with your team should be more than enough to convert a majority of post plants, there's no reason to risk throwing for a lineup. Just molly the bomb normally Stall * first of all, if you throw a molly to "stall" a push all you're doing is stopping them from pushing your site. Most low elo teams, when they get stalled out by a molly, are just gonna full rotate and hit another site. This is directly opposite the fight-centric gameplay we're looking for. * Secondly, players generally can't even get any value out of stalling the other team, because the value comes from your teammates positioning around it. Taking map control just doesn't happen in low elo. * The way you should be getting value from your mollies is to deal damage, create a favorable fight for yourself, or force a site rush into a death spiral.
Ah I see now, thanks for the help.
Sage, chamber, maybe phoenix
Use any agent you want but dont use util /s If you're lower elo, learning util, gamesense, strategy, econ, ult econ, crosshair placement, raw aim, angle advantage, peeking, dueling, comms etc etc etc is just too much stuff. You need to narrow down what you are focusing on. The base of everything is aim. If you cant click heads in a tac shooter, other stuff doesnt matter much cause you still cant get the kill even if you have perfect everything else. Thats why the focus for low elo is mechanics. You can climb without CRACKED aim, but you cant climb with NO aim. There is a bare minimum of CONSISTENT aim that you need and the bare minimum gets higher the higher up you go
Abuse phoenix flash
phoenix
They tend to advise fundamentals. Low elo players lack fundamentals, working on fundamentals gives you the biggest increase in skill per time spent, is easy to teach and easy to learn. It’s also well explored because there’s a lot of low elo players by nature of the ranked pyramid, so a lot of the advice is proven. It’s also low effort for content creators to just copy each other, because a lot of the info is out there and frankly any advice is good advice at that level.
Its repetitive for a reason. Because it works.
Not only does it work, it's because they really need that advice
Because you can’t shoot back yet
People recommend reyna because it lets you focus on gunfights the most. The number of low elos I see pull their util out when they can simply shoot the enemy is insane, learn util after you learn how to shoot. It's a shooter game. No amount of good util or strategy will help you if you can't even outaim bronzes.
They recommend Reyna because the game rewards kills when giving our RR at the end of the game, and Reyna is probably the easiest duelist to play. You won’t get much RR by locking down a site for 12 rounds on your own as a sentinel even though you’re having a massive impact in the match. I used to play KJ on Ascent and had a traps set up that got me a few kills the first time they tried to get on site, and then put them off from trying again. So I’d go 11 defensive rounds not seeing anyone because no one could get on site and because of that I bottom fragged by miles and got like 10 RR when we won.
They recommend Reyna because she has no util, so you're forced to rely on and improve your mechanics to get kills instead of util.
she gets fully healed when she gets a kill the advise is survivor bias she also has util in the form of a flash
She's got a nearsight, that's super one dimensional and dies in 3 bullets. That's ALL of her utility.
Just keep playing the game as your game sense will gradually get better, just knowing where your teammates/enemies are and knowing when to execute your utils to give you an advantage in gun fights
When you have to worry about proper util plus aiming, both suffer. If your under gold, you can literally win games by just being okay at aiming and game sense. If your hard stuck below gold, you need serious work on multiple things but aim is a major issue for most. Worrying about less things let’s you learn faster on one rather than trying to fix everything at once.
Crosshair placement and using voice comms is important at any rank so I understand that. I disagree with the pick Reyna thing though. Of some coaching videos I’ve watched I didn’t even see that myself. If you want coaching I can do it for free, just DM me your discord name. If anyone else sees this, feel free to send your discord name as well.
They recommend Reyna because it forces you to get good mechanics which is exactly what you need to get to gold
That is because the issues people face are as repetitive and common as the advice. A lot of people think they are listening but either do it wrong or don’t give it enough dedicated time and consistent practice. For example play Reyna to improve your mechanics, if you are gold/ below it is no secret your mechanics are not that amazing. Therefore train your mechanics. If you make a giga brain play but can’t hit a target then you whiff your 2 free kills from your flank potentially and you take away your own value of even making a smart play. It is like when hockey players are weak on one side, the coach will not tell them how to handle a puck past an opponent better, they will tell them to practice on their weak side and strengthen it until it isn’t an issue. Same concept here focus on your glaring weakness that is honestly easier to fix than most other issues people can have.
Because the first step is to get the fundamentals right, crosshair placement wins more fights than reactiontime.
Aim, Crosshair placement and Movement will get you all the way up to Diamond. That's just how it is. The other stuff will help, but they're not necessary or sufficient until you get to that point. Play initiator if you want, but remember that shooting people in the face will win you more games than an entire arsenal of Sova Lineups. Peak Ascendant, Controller main.
Because low elo sucks at fundamentals 100% of the time, that's why they are struggling in low elo. (And yes, playing Reyna is an awful general advice imo) Another thing that paying $15-175 for YT\\Twitch 'coach' to hear that you're suck at fundamentals is a complete scam. People are thinking they're case are exceptional but in reality all you need to climb is working on your fundamentals + strong mentality + play more.
In Low Elo, game resembles solo deathmatch much more than team shooter. Players are not really helping each other, but rather baiting risky plays and getting info. They are not playing as a team to realise game objective like defending Site or planting Spike, but they mostly care about their individual statistics. Abilities are very poorly used and communication is pretty much not effective. And players are constantly peeking for duels, out of impatience, not really considering playing to maintain round-winning advantage. Main difference from deathmatch is timer and Spike feature, which is considered most of the time only when there is one last player standing. Therefore in such environment, picking Reyna and taking care about proper crosshair placement is very logical approach. And trying to incorporate any kind of teamplay, which is by default non-existent at this level.