Is it better to just play your 1 or 2 mains, or play whatever the team needs in competitive?

Ah thanks for the clarification. Mostly tanks this season, but I play anything.

The way competitive works and how hostile it is to solo queuing completely ruined this game for me.

And no i dont want to play QP. It's not fun playing games where no one is trying.

I think it's best to get competent at one DPS, one healer, one tank, and mostly just play those.

I think this game is way more complex than the average person is capable of understanding.

It results in stupid people just focusing on the same few things over and over.

I can't count the number of times I've seen someone get picked off for being out of position and then say "guys we have to stop trickling, group up". Or how many times people get yelled at for "not being on the payload" when they are tracer/genji/etc and trying to pressure the defense's back line.

The average person is pretty dumb, and this being such a complex game, makes it impossible for people to understand what is happening.

The thing that drives me nuts is people yelling to stop overextending and to stand on the point. If we push up and hold the choke they have literally one spot they have to come through. If we stand on point and just wait they have free reign to 5 or so routes and we lose whatever advantage we had.

To be fair, I see lots of pro/top500 games where failure to keep 3 on the cart allows another fight on a section of the map in the first place. I'm fine with tracer/genji being up front poking, but there are so many wall riding lucios/anas standing 40 feet from the cart just being completely useless in that scenario.

The big things I hear all the time that really frustrate me is "guys we're not doing any damage", when it's often a failure of tanks to engage/create any sort of front line, or Anas shooting the enemy team allowing the tanks to die. Something like tracer is amazing at doing tons of damage/cleaning up, but requires actually engaging in the team fight at some point. Reinhardts routinely just sit there with their shield up from 2000-0 standing still, then complain that their team is useless. You have to figure out how to help create an engagement/help with damage as well.

Another one that drives me nuts is people being unwilling to swap off a hero because they have an ult, or a lot of ult charge. McCree, your ult is literally useless, play something else. Symmetra, we don't need a teleporter going 30 feet, swap to healer. They swapped to zen/widow/mccree and you keep insta dying as pharah, please just swap and give up your barrage. Meh.

There are definitely times to push up but I'm not so sure of your logic.

I would agree as a default you should group up on point / payload.

It's a lot harder to get flanked / picked this way. Especially since most teams struggle to group up without a concrete target area (i.e. the point).

Also the closer to their spawn you fight the faster they get back to the battle and the longer it takes you to get back. That will add up fast.

Payloads are also good cover and the cars heal you a little.

Kaze is pretty clearly talking about point defense and not payload, though. Not defending chokepoints on Hanamura, Anubis, etc. is terrible. He's playing at 1700 with people who are completely brain dead.

On the lighter side, I finally started my placement matches yesterday and in one game, a teammate was using auto-tune on his voice communications, which was pretty hilarious.

I've been pretty lucky so far in placements in that I haven't had any toxic teams. The one referenced above was really the only one with any arguing, but it settled down and wasn't that bad - it was basically the old "why don't you switch to someone else if you can't take down Pharah as Soldier."

EDIT: I also had a pretty amusing death in one game. My team's Soldier got Tracer's bomb planted on him and he must've then gotten booped or something (maybe he just jumped?) because he flew backwards into me. It was like it happened in slow motion - I could see the bomb on him and was then helpless as he landed on me as the bomb exploded.

Actually happened a second time in the game, but this time it was Roadhog and he just ran into me with the bomb on him.

Double XP this weekend. Actually starts on Thursday at 8 pm Eastern through Monday at 2:59 am.

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20845154

Bummer for me because I'm not going be able to play at all after early Saturday morning.

FWIW (nothing), I ended last season at 1928 SR and just went 6-4 in my placements to start at 1832. Seems normal.

I went 6-4 from 3000 ish sr, placed at 2500.
back up to 3k.

idk what the point of that nonsense is.

That was a typo. The end is Tuesday at 2:59 am EDT.

60% win rate so far with Rein+Soldier+Zen+Lucio so far. Almost 1800. At the rate I am going I will be back in silver near the end of season. Lol. I think it's time to Hanzo back to 1200s

I think it's psychological. Assuming where you ended last season is about where you "should" be ranked, by slotting you lower to start this season, it feels much better when you get those big gains from wins.

That's assuming we win at the beginning of the season. I placed close enough to my end and peak points where the competition should be the same.

Played one "real" competitive game (non-placement) last night and we won. Felt fortunate, as my team was mediocre - we got pretty lucky to survive an Earth Shatter when the opponents were inches away from the castle door on Eichenwald. I gained 45 SR. Early wins are awesome.

I know several folks who went 10-0 in placements and were still placed well below where they ended the previous season. I'm uncertain what exactly the placement matches are there for, other than sucking up 10 games' worth of your time.

I'm pretty sure they're mostly measuring something other than wins. It's probably a complicated algorithm, but I would guess K/D ratio, medals, and time on fire have a lot to do with it.

I also think they make it v hard (impossible?) for you to place higher than last seasons end (or at least your SR season / career high).

Solo comp is about impossible right now. I'm not even having fun at this point. No one is playing to win. Just had a mercy on my team that didn't heal a single person, just used her pistol the entire time.

Been meaning to ask, how do you get on fire? I still haven't figured that out.

It's basically just doing really well for a while without dying. Doing lots of damage, getting kills, etc.

It doesn't mean anything when it comes to SR - it's just for fun. There's a little progress bar by your hero's picture that shows how close you are to being on fire.

I do feel like the placement structure need to change somehow. There needs to be something like placement matches at the beginning of the season, since the alternatives would be a) to just start people where they finished the previous season, which would just make it all one continuous season and be dumb, b) start everyone at zero or 1000 or something, which would be a total mess and be unfair to basically everyone, or c) randomly place people close to their last SR, which his basically what is done now.

I finished/peaked around 2000 last season. I clearly shouldn't be placed at 3000 or even 2500, nor should I be at 1000 or 1500 (my low last season was 1600+). Thus, placing at 1800 seems fine to me. But then it seems like there wasn't much point to the placement matches. If I went 10-0, how high would I have been placed? 2000? 2100? Not much difference, really.

You need placements for people who didn't play last season though, you can't just put someone straight in at 1500 at rank 25, you have to see how they do in a real game.

Yep (other than I don't think dying interrupts your fire progress), also, the # that appears to the right after you eliminate someone is actually the number of points you're getting towards being on fire. You also get points for advancing certain objectives (i.e. capturing control point, defending control point, etc.).

It doesn't mean much, but it's generally true that whoever on your team is on fire is having the biggest impact.