Context: I play on PS4 and this is my first FPS game. I started season 13 being placed in gold (like everyone’s first season) mostly one-tricking Zen. Fell in love with Widow and started playing her religiously in season 14. As you can guess, I spiralled my way down to bronze. After a lot of plays, watching vids to improve my skills and game sense, I’ve started to climb and right now, I’m back in mid-Silver, trying to climb back to Gold and hopefully onwards. Along the way, I’ve picked up other supports such as Brig/Lucio/Moira along with Zen and Widow. I only play Widow on Junkertown, Dorado, Rialto, King’s Row, and Anubis while on other maps, I typically revert to playing support.
Funnily enough, in Bronze and low Silver (throwers and smurfs aside) I see a lot more people willing to flex, play tank/support, and group up+communicate. Certain things are still missing though like ult economy and target prioritization (killing enemy Mercy etc). I try to shot call on these but it’s really dependent on the team. Also, toxicity is common but not really bad (really miss the chill Bronze people though).
Now that I’m in mid-Silver (1750+) and sometimes being placed in games where I’m fighting with high Silver and low Gold, it feels like chaos most of the time. 4-5 DPS and I’m the only one left playing support to help all of them. Worst, people don’t communicate at all and grouping up never happens. I do notice that these people typically have better aim than people in Bronze but my god, it feels like FFA with people all over the map. It’s come to a point that I had to switch off Widow on my favorite maps because we have way too many DPS. I don’t mind flexing but flexing all the time just to have a healer on the team and we still don’t win? Really frustrating.
What should I do? How do people solo-queue at this rank? I try to queue with friends but they’re not always available so sometimes I have to solo-queue. I don’t mind playing support but I feel useless lol. I feel like I need to adapt to this new chaotic playstyle to climb. Should I even bother playing support at this level? I play a lot of Soldier, McCree, Pharah in QP but in comp, the only DPS I have experience in are Widow and Bastion. I’m not a god Widow by any means but I’ve gotten to a point in which I’m able to win most Widow duels in my games, even against Gold Widows, and I usually try to get important picks (not all the time but I’ve been told that my Widow is pretty good for a Silver).
Get good enough to carry. Something that can be very effective is spawn camping. Someone like Hog or Soldier spawn camping enemy squishies can be very effective.
If you’ve already pulled yourself out of bronze to where you are, it sounds like you’re at least on the right track. Not telling you anything you probably don’t know already, but you’re somewhat behind the 8 ball, being that you play a popular DPS hero at a rank where it’s crowded with a lot of people who fancy themselves as eSports gods.
I wish I had tactical advice for you, but Widow is one of my worst heroes. All I can say is that I climbed from low 1300’s to where I am now as basically a Hamster one-trick, solo queue, no voice chat, PS4. So it can be done.
Judging by how you write, it seems like you’re a pretty rational, self-aware person. I would utilize the PS4 to record and watch back your matches and see where you went wrong in terms of positioning, target prioritization, etc. It also wouldn’t hurt to try and learn a tank to have in your back pocket in addition to the supports you have been using.
I solo que everytime and I just play heros that people really really really dont like : offtank or tank in general. U can definitely solo carry with a good tank and being a good tank is such a gamechanger in lower elos. You definitely lead the team and thats how u can make impact and thats how u solo climb simple as that. And if you fell all the way to bronze because u love widow maybe u should realize it sooner that b4 u pick up the most skillintense hero in the game fix other things first like game sense / positioning and aim? In no means do I say you suck at widow but widow requires way too much to really work well in a teambased game. And instalocking widow on your favorite maps also isnt a good thing to do tbh especially with multiple dps.
Keep playing and improving, your SR will gradually increase. Best thing you can do is stop caring about what SR you have and focus more on the games and not letting stupid ones get to you because once you do you start tilting rather easily, everyone get those stupid games which is unwinnable or at least close to it so as long as you move on it wont really have a negative impact on your SR over time.
It’s not like you would have more fun playing in let’s say mid-gold unless you consistently could perform on that skill level and if you can play on that level you’ll get there eventually.
Playing on a skill level you can’t handle will only result in a negative win-rate.
For your non-masters players, it has nothing to do with carry potential. It’s too hard to carry in a 6v6 situation with overpowered “ultimates” that change the pacing of the game as much as they do. You need to hope that your five potatoes are as good, if not, better than the six potatoes on the other team. If you truly outmatch your opponents / teammates and belong in a higher elo, the game is more likely to finish in your favor. Repeat with enough time and you’ll eventually get placed where you belong.
A problem with Blizzard’s matchmaking is that it errs on the side of caution and forces the end user to grind through the mire of terrible games and awful matchmaking. I believe you can hone your skills faster than the game can place you. No system is perfect, to be fair, but they need to bring back some of the volatility from the early days when streaks and placements actually mattered.
Try to duo q or 3 stack. If you are good enough for your rank (being able to carry) and you have decent players with you ull go up. I ranked up my bronze friend in my smurf to almost plat, it is easier to rank up with flex players that know their roles. Now he is a established gold player but at least he got out of elo hell.
People focus too much on a single hero and try to learn that hero as much as possible. Which is a great starting point but it has major drawbacks.
What you need to do is pick a role type to specialize in. Then start to master a few different types of heroes. For DPS, you can be hitscan for high range damage (such as Widow), or a disruptive DPS like Sombra/Mai to help break up the teams and provide distractions. Or you can be a DPS that provides quick kills with their ults that go quite well with Grav or even by themselves.
think about the tank role. Tanks understand when they are main tanks, what each tank provides, how they provide it, and who they pair up with. DPS rarely think about this and apply it. Both from a DPS meshing perspective, but also from how it pairs with your team comp.
If you play WIdow on every single map, for every single team fight, you’re providing great value sometimes, and little value others. A DPS’s job is to kill the enemy quicker than the DPS on the other team can kill your team. If you do not have a line of site behind their shield and are just doing shield damage while an enemy tracer is cleaning up your backline… you’re not helping your team.
You seem to be on the right track. Sadly you are now hitting Gold, the land of toxic "ELO Hell"ers who think that they are the best overwatch players on the planet, and their teammates are the only reason that they lose. This is a lie, and you need to remember not to fall into the same trap. It can be a longer and more frustrating climb than what you probably experienced in Bronze or Silver. It gets better once you get past Gold, but that’s not to say you cant climb. Anyone can, it just typically takes a bit longer at that rank due to arguing among teammates. Also remember that the other team is probably just as likely to explode, and if you can simply annoy them it is very easy to get gold players to tilt, giving you an easier time winning. Try not to get too worried about this though, and you will do great!
My best advice is to make use of the “share” button on the ps4, and record any game that results in a close loss, and review it. See what you can find wrong with your play, and think of how you can improve it. If you are trying to climb with Widow, you are more relying on your mechanical skill to climb than anything else, so there isn’t a ton you can do to become a better teammate from that standpoint, something which typically helps you to climb. Nearly all of your value is going to be coming from getting picks, but the main thing you want to think about when reviewing your footage is your positioning. Did I stay in the same spot to long and let the other team plan a dive on me? Or am I taking positions where I have poor sightlines? Or maybe I am playing too close to the other team, and am dying because I am in range of their dps? These things will help you to climb while your mechanical skill naturally increases with practice.
In terms of healers, you want to think about alot more when you are reviewing your footage. Look once again for your positioning and how much value you are able to get from there, but you also want to think about your decision making. Try to stay close to your tanks or in safe positions that you can heal them from, but be aware of your dps. Your main tank is your priority to heal, but if he is safe then try to keep everyone else topped up. Learn to save your cooldowns for when you need them, and not simply using them when they are available. And finally, learn to track ults. This is very important for any player, but esspecially if you are playing Zen or Lucio, as you will want to try and save your ult to counter the other team’s key ult combo. Reviewing your footage will help to give you a feel as to how long different ults take to charge, and also show you some of the tendancies players have when their ult is charged. Rein’s are typically the easiest to spot, so watch them in your footage and you should see what I mean. As I already said, the better teammate that you are, the faster you will climb. You are the only thing you can control, so try not to focus on what your teammates are doing wrong too much. Also, don’t be afraid to look for someone to do a VOD review of your footage, you can learn alot from an experienced coach. Best of luck!
Hey everyone, thanks for the replies! Really appreciate all the responses and tips.
The reason why I haven’t learnt any tank at all is because my duo and triple stack friends play Orisa/Hog/DVa/Hammond mostly and I’m their healer/DPS for the most part. But I’m trying Hammond and Rein in QP right now so hopefully that’ll work out soon. Really enjoy playing Hammond and being obnoxious lol. Still pretty much a rectangle man when I’m playing Rein, it feels very difficult to be aggro in QP when all your teammates are scattered all over the map doing their own thing.
My SR right now floats between 1650 - 1750. Oddly enough, looking at Overbuff, I have 60+% winrate on Widow but not on other characters lol. I really do enjoy playing her the most out of all and honestly, playing her helps me so much when I’m playing other characters. Like Hammond and Zen, I have been conditioned to automatically go for the head instead of just any hitbox I see. But as I said in my OP, I don’t play her on all maps, just a few that she has advantage in and as much as I don’t like bragging, I’d like to believe that I’ve improved on her to be viable enough in comp for Silver.
Hammond has a steep learning curve but is fun once you have him down. Don’t stay with an engagement too long unless you have most of your team with you. Just get in, create your havoc, and get the hell out of dodge to set yourself up to do it again.
You win equally amount of easy games because people in the other team have throwers and so on.
All you have to do is win the ones that are winnable and play as expected from someone on your skill level or better, it’s not rocket science.
I’ve climbed with two accounts to diamond flexing with extreme high win rates so it’s not really a coinflip.
approaching choke
“Tracers in the back…” 5 people including my off healer charge forward me fending off tracer
“WTF HEALER WHERE ARE MY HEALS” Tracer dies Rein and the rest of your team die
WTF ANA WHERE ARE MY HEALS YOU’RE TRASH
It is quite possible to climb with any role out of any rank. Part of it for you will be understanding what exactly you are meant to be doing.
If you are playing Widow, you need to be making those plays:
Making every engagement a 6 v 5 before it starts, ideally taking out a support, but it is also worth getting a DPS.
You need to win Widow vs Widow. It is your job to kill her more than anyone elses (even more than Winston, Sombra or DVA)
If you are playing support you need to identify who the key players to heal are. It isn’t everyone even though it might feel that way.
You need to always back up your 2nd support if they are in trouble assuming they aren’t throwing.
You need to back up the players doing the push.
You need to ignore people who are out of position, unless you can heal them safely without moving out of position yourself.
You need to make sure your primary tank doesn’t die, as typically losing them will have a domino like effect on your team.
There is more to it than that, as each support has particular play styles, but those are the fundamentals.
A couple of tips for each one though:
Zen: Orb the front line, don’t keep swapping it. Discord who your front line is fighting unless defending yourself. Make sure you can aim.
Brig: Be near the front-line but not the front-line. Defend the primary tank and armor pack whoever is the closest range wise to the enemy team who is doing the fighting.
Moira: Healing Orb is almost always more important than damage Orb. DPSing may seem easy, but beyond a certain rank Moira is trivial to kill before she drains you.
Lucio: Is most useful speeding his team-mates to get them into position, whether that is ferrying slower members as they respawn, or helping your tanks/DPS chase down the enemy, you will often want to be using speed. Stay close to your team no matter how much reddit Lucio calls you.
Finally, narrow down your hero pool. I would cut it down to 3 and get really good at them.
Work out who your favorites are and focus on them, preferably one at a time.
![:grin:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/grin.png?v=6" ":grin:")