Quote:
Originally Posted by jmakin
Alright, haven't really played in months. I want to be better. I know I'm being lazy by posting this here, but the info out on the web honestly is pretty terrible about how to git gud at this game.
I want to play competitive solo. I am okay (imo) at lucio but find him boring. I also know I use him wrong, I spend most of my time healing and fragging and running us back after a wipe.
So far I am 4-1 on my placements but I stopped because it's stressing me out and I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I'm okay with hanzo. I used to be good with pharah. I feel i need to stick to one character for now because when I switch I start sucking with the other.
I tried zenyatta but I died sooooo ****ing quick.
How the **** do i get better?
My experience has been relatively easy climbing from 1650 to near masters as I improved. Did it on 2 accounts, primarily solo. I'd say it's primarily 5 general priorities:
#1 Positioning
#2 Hero picks / switching
#3 Good performance focus (intentional with aiming, paying attention to sound, situational awareness)
#4 Talking your team into doing better stuff
#5 Never giving up at any point in a game
#1 Positioning
I think positioning is the most important skill in the game. Once I really understood it my aim climbed 15% on McCree, went to 99th percentile crits on Zen... I wouldn't even say I have particularly good aim, good positioning makes it easy.
Positioning is dynamic, there's 3 zones generally, frontline, midrange, backline. You should almost always be approximately with your team, even if their overall idea is stupid (4/6 spawn camp and couldn't be talked out of it, you have to join). Should be pretty obvious where each hero generally belongs (Rein/Dva front, Zarya/Reaper mid, McCree/Zen back). Flankers should only be played when you can time your engagement with the rest of your team safely.
The ideal position has immediately accessible cover near an attack path and a long term retreat path. Good thought exercise for this would be to ask yourself where Zen should stand for point A Hanamura defense (my baseline position is the stairs / cove to the left of the point facing attack spawn behind the small health pack doorway). You drop back for immediate cover and can immediately turn a corner.
#2 Hero picks / switching The key thing I do with my pick is to solve my team's most likely problem, this means I'm comfortable on lots of heroes but mostly focus on getting highly proficient on one:
-Zen (main)
-Rein
-Dva
-Zarya
-Tracer
-Reaper
For me this plays out 70% Zen, 10% filling, 10% niche meta strat (Dva to break a Junk Rat spammed choke, Pharah flank on Eichen, Ana for Nepal: Sanctum), 10% desperation / reactive switches.
Niche hero picks that can be ideal if you can meet the skill requirement for the situation, generally only using them on a specific map, situation or section:
-Pharah
-Roadhog
-McCree
-Mei
-Genji (maybe? not sure)
-Lucio
-Ana
Anything outside of those heroes I'd argue is not ideal for solo queue as there would be a higher impact choice. Torb for example has some good point A defenses but you'd generally have a higher impact picking Zen and positioning correctly so you rarely die, have the big Trans to save people and can still DPS.
#3 Good performance focus
Sounds are super important. You should rarely be caught off guard by a Reaper drop. Intentionally aiming every shot is key to hitting headshots. Knowing when to take desperate chances, when to switch to stall comp picks, etc. have a big impact on winrate.
Playing the objective seems to be a common failure. For example, never for any reason give up an easy pick off on defense. Trading 1:1 and even 1:2 is usually not worth. I see a shocking amount of people play in front of the choke for kills on defense. Conversely on offense, it's often correct to take big chances even if you die a lot. Plan to wipe everyone on 2cp attack and planning to stall for spawns on 2cp defense.
Another important idea for this for me was "soft eyes" where you don't hyper focus on what you're doing and it allows you to use your peripheral vision to be aware of new threats / changing situations.
#4 Talking your team into doing better stuff
I tend to propose changes between rounds and never request role (tank to support) swaps mid-round. I tend not to worry about DPS, most DPS are bad sub-diamond on both sides, people only freak about it because they gave up the DPS slot not because it's actually the biggest impact on winrate.
High impact requests generally:
-Grab Dva for a surprise Bastion / other cheese / problematic Junk Rat
-Get Mercy to switch if she's missing res
-Getting a Rein
-Getting a Lucio for KOTH
-Switch a DPS to Reaper
-Lower ranks, getting someone off Winston onto another tank
#5 Never giving up at any point in a game
It's very rare you're in an unwinnable spot in OW. One hero swap, a different section of the map or a few clutch head shots can turn an easy push into a brick wall. Always keep trying things until you lose.