Win More in Competitive Play With These Overwatch Tips
Whether you are new to the game or a casual veteran, these are essential tips to utterly trash your opponents so they can be the salty ones.
With over 40 million players across the globe, Overwatch has exploded onto the scene of team-based multiplayer shooters. It was highly anticipated when it was announced at Blizzcon 2014 and had over 10 million people in the beta. Overwatch is widely considered to be one of the best games released in 2016.
One of the great things about Overwatch is you cannot buy gear to improve your play. This levels the playing field so that everyone can work their way through competitive ranks based on skill rather than what gear they can afford.
Practice
You can’t really succeed at anything if you don’t practice. Quick play can be scary and full of salt, so that may not be the best place for a beginner. Arcade modes like Mystery Heroes are more casual and fun, plus you can’t pick your characters. This forces you to play all of the characters, whether you want to or not. Big emphasis on the “not”.
A lot of pros play Quick Play matches before games to get in the zone. As you develop strong skills on a character in this mode, you can earn enough confidence to try your skills at Competitive. You aren’t going to become great overnight. Practice until you nail it.
Practicing builds muscle memory, essential for dominating with flickshots. You’ll be thankful for these skills when you can take out that cheeky Tracer.
More Practice with Online Apps
Professional gamers use flash applications like Aim Booster to hone crucial skills like reaction time and hand-eye coordination. When streaming, some top Overwatch players these apps to warm up or to stay loose in between matches.
The great thing about these apps is seeing improvement the more you use them. Use them for warming up and for getting better at skills you need to be awesome at FPS games.
These apps won’t help your aim, but they will transform your reflexes.
Be Flexible
In this meta, you see a lot of flexibility. They may start with a typical dive comp (highly mobile characters like Tracer, Genji, Zenyatta, etc.) but will adjust if it isn’t working or another part of the map requires a different setup. Being great means having a flexible hero pool, being capable of playing a few different characters.
Flexibility also helps when setting up the teams at the start of the matches. You don’t want to be in a position where someone picks your best/favorite character and you have no other option. Master one character (at least) from each category so you can bring something to the team. Teammates appreciate the flexibility more than someone who refuses to play anything other than Hanzo.
Learn about “meta” to know which characters you should be playing. Meta means “Most Effective Tools Available”, referring to the best composition of characters. So if your group is running a dive, stick to mobile characters.
Settings
Gameplay is very dependent on settings, like key binds, crosshairs, and especially sensitivity. Sensitivity can depend on your personal preference, changing when playing different characters. For DPS characters like McCree, you may choose a lower sensitivity. For tank characters like Reinhart, a higher sensitivity may be the best choice.
There isn’t a science to this. Check the settings of your favorite professionals for inspiration. For players like Pine, he changes his settings on a regular basis depending on how he feels that day. Saebyeolbe runs with a 6.93 in game sensitivity and 800 DPI.
As for key binds, choose a setup that you’re comfortable with though this can vary depending on the character you’re playing. Some pros choose to swap their jump key from the space bar to the middle mouse button instead, especially for players like Lúcio since this makes wall riding easier.
Crosshairs (the area where you aim) can completely change your accuracy. Play around with the crosshairs to find the one that works with your play style. This won’t be the same for every character, so don’t be afraid to adjust it as needed.
Gear
Gear refers to your mouse, keyboard, mouse pad, etc. Each of these items also has their own settings, which you will want to adjust as needed such as DPI.
A major part of this is your mouse and mousepad setup. A good gaming mouse can allow you to set your DPI right on the mouse as necessary. Gaming mice can range from affordable to insanely expensive, but you don’t have to spend a fortune on one.
When buying a mousepad, you want one that is large enough to give you an adequate amount of space for playing and that offers your mouse a smooth surface to move on. You’d be surprised at how much space you need for hand movements while playing.
Watch the Professionals
By watching pros stream or the Overwatch League, you will learn tricks that you never thought of before. You can see their settings and watch how they approach each character or map.
Professional OWL players participate in the league’s “Game/Set” series, where the leading names in the league describe their settings and other tips to help fans improve their play. You can find these clips on the official Overwatch League YouTube page, under their playlist.
Technique
Mastering technique is essential to destroying enemies. Knowing where to aim your crosshairs or doing flickshots should be instinctive.
Flickshots are where you flick your crosshairs on a target then immediately return to the neutral position. This is a popular technique for both snipers and characters like McCree with a single shot weapon.
Tracking, where you keep your crosshairs on the target while shooting, is very useful for characters who use automatic weapons. This is commonly used by hitscan players, like Soldier: 76.
The placement of crosshairs is still important even when not engaged in a fight. Try predicting where the enemy is coming from and aim there to instantly get them. They’ll never see it coming and go full salt on you about aimbotting.
Patience
For characters like Tracer or Widowmaker, patience is important to mastering them. Widowmaker needs to wait for the perfect shot to get insta-kills and so that she doesn’t immediately give away her position to the other team, especially to the other Widow.
Patience is also necessary for using ultimate abilities. Knowing when to use your ultimates is often the difference between a win and a loss. Say you get trigger happy with your tranquility: using it too soon leaves the team vulnerable to that Genji Dragonblade that is about to come out. Saving your ults for the perfect moment requires patience, but it’s worth it.
Work as a Team
This is a team-based game after all. Unless your character can tank, DPS, heal, while soloing enemies on the payload (like Brigitte), you didn’t carry your team. Communication and teamwork is what gets wins. Help other people out. If you’re Mercy, don’t spend the entire time as Battle Mercy. If you’re a Widowmaker, stand on the point when necessary.
Staggering in may make you feel like a hero, but everyone needs to group up to win. All the gold medals won’t help you if you don’t complete the objectives to win. For instance, the people actually need to be on the payload to get it to the finish line. It may take a bit to get over that shock, but it’s true.
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