How Do You Kill A Good Winston?

General Discussion
1

I can’t seem to do it. He just leaps in, places bubble, shield dances and kills someone and then leaps away before anyone can do anything. His supports can also heal him when he’s in the bubble so he can stay longer and kill more like 3 people. Bubble has so much health there’s no point in trying to break it. By the time you break it he’s already killed your support and has leap back. He might as well be completely invincible when shield is up. You go in and he’s out, you go out and he’s in, back and forth and evading all of your shots.

People say Reaper shreds him and makes him useless, but every time I swap to beat a good Winston with Reaper, he just plays safer and comes in when he knows I’m low or I used a cooldown or I’m reloading, and the Winston remains just as effective and deadly as before. Same as if I swap to Bastion.

2

Mauga, Dva, Hog, and Orisa can make his life difficult.

Brig babysitting her support partner neutralizes him.

And DPS that burst or can melt his barrier have a field day with him.

You have a lot of options Torb, hanzo’s storm arrows, Reaper, Echo, Sombra, Soldier, Sojourn and Tracer.

Their passive gives them an edge.

If a Winston is cooking you then his team might have good mic communication and coordination. He’s a team effort tank

3 Likes
3

Shoot him. You have options in Bastion and Reaper who can eat a monkey regardless if they’re good or not.

Also it doesn’t matter what role. Really what a lot of players seem to forget is that his bubble is not that durable.

EVERYONE should be shooting the dang bubble. Suppprts dps and the tank. Unless you’re better at bubble dancing then the Winston, which many are not, you shouldn’t be running into his bubble looking for clean shots.

Just shoot the dang bubble. Even if you are the only one shooting it it’ll help so much more than you think. A good team will pop Winston’s bubble almost instantly.

Sombra is a good one to hack Winston before he lands. It’ll trap him and prevent him from using his bubble when he lands. You can also still do significant damage to bubble yourself and hacking a Winston before they leave literally traps him longer so hack before he jumps or before he lands.

Mccree is bad into Monkey. Soldier is fine with his healing station as thr added sustain can cancel out Winston’s cleave…only if your teammates are smart enough to group.

Snipers…bad choice. Fliers can force Winston’s jump so he wastes it more often which means less dives overall. Junkrat can kine him when he gets close. Just make sure you save it exclusively for Winston because your CDs won’t be able to keep up with Winston every time.

Hog and Dva are a nightmare for Winston to deal with.

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4

I literally just had a match where I was Mauga and kept shooting the bubble with both guns. Didn’t matter. By the time I got it down, he had leap back and just left, every time.
The only time he died in the match is when I swapped to Echo for shield breaking with her beam and managed to stick him with bombs.
This was OQ comp.

5

Im assuming you only play dps. Here are your options.

Reaper/bastion- play BODYGUARD for your supports. He can’t bubble dance against you if you’re at point blank range protecting them, foiling all his value. Just remember you are dedicating yourself to bodyguard here. Do not be overextending and leaving your supports high and dry.

Sombra/tracer- kill his supports faster than he can kill yours. The goal is simple and you have every advantage in doing this with drastically superior TTK.

Most dps are capable of one of these two counter strategies (dive his team faster/body guard effectively to force him out) but those are the best at those roles.

6

I swapped to Reaper in the match above and it didn’t matter. He just stayed on high ground and shot us with right click and when he saw someone vulnerable he would leap down and kill them. He played safer when I was Reaper, and when I was distracted or was low on ammo or had my wraith on cooldown he would not only kill who he was going for but would sometimes kill me.

I didn’t bother with swapping to Bastion because I have never had success swapping to Bastion against Winston. He just doesn’t engage when I have assault off cooldown, and then comes in and obliterates me when he knows I’ve used it.

7

Winston has more counters than any other tank, imo. Hog, Mauga, Dva, Orisa, Reaper, Mei, Sombra, Bastion, Brig are all very effective at shutting down dive in general.

Winston relies on his team more than any other tank as well. He thrives on separating the opponent tank from their support. If you can shut that down, Winston will not be able to get value outside of isolated duels.

Stick with your team and anticipate the dive. Don’t let the Winston bait your cooldowns without losing something for doing so.

As with any hero, what makes a great player is their ability to overcome their hard-counters, so all you can really do is take the punishment and hope they are on your team next time you see them.

8

Sounds like your team kept ignoring bubnle when they should be popping it. Faster it goes down the easier it is to deal with Winston.

Most tank have issues keeping up with Winston, a lot of supports believe its just the dps or tank’s job to deal with Winston, while somehow true, they can still contribute taking down Winston.

You didn’t play Mauga wrong, but it also sounds like a bad comp around your Mauga so its not your fault here I bet. And I’l bet a 100 dollars you had some teammates that ignore winston and threw playing whatever they wanted while the supports healbotted thinking their somehow good players.

3 Likes
9

It sounds like a bad teammate issue then.

At the end of the day you can’t solo a tank and that’s intentional design.

Your other dps should be spotting way more pressure than a Winston can at range. And your tank should be taking advantage of all that delicious time the Winston is forced to sit there slowly using alt fire for garbage damage.

If Winston wastes 3 seconds Alt firing my tank should be on the objective forcing him off, or were already in the objective and Winston can’t seriously do much about it.

The fact you had Winston acting that way is the evidence of your job being done. But your team wasn’t capitalizing it sounds like.

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10

Bring a very big jar of peanut butter as bait.

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11

How? He just targets her, pierces her shield and destroys her. She is a terrible matchup against Winston, I’d say it’s one of the worst matchups in the game.

I guess my teams just won’t shoot the bubble because usually by the time I get it down, he has leap back and just leaves. I think most people don’t bother shooting it, same with Ram’s shield.

I never thought about doing this before, I’ll have to try it.

If he already had bubble up, this would not be doable. He would shield dance so I couldn’t hack and left click would prevent me from doing it as well.

But bodyguarding means that I can’t do much to the enemy team, right? Especially if I’m Reaper, because he has such short range. If I bodyguard them, maybe Winston won’t kill them, but he’ll still be able to hurt our tank or dps, and I won’t be able to hurt their supports or dps. Winston also immediately jumps in after Bastion has used assault and destroys him, so I would never be able to use it against anyone but Winston unless he was dead.

I’ll have to try this as well. Usually I’m just too worried to go off because Winston is already wrecking us, so I feel like if I leave he’ll just wreck us even harder. I don’t think this is doable in OQ, though, as there’s usually another tank to defend the team.

Yeah I don’t think they were shooting it. I noticed it never got the crack effect on it unless I was shooting it.

12

Pick heroes that make him explode with his bubble: Dva, Reap, Bast, Discord, Bap: a combination of these and he is unable to play anymore. One Dva that has brains hardcounters winton. However, you need to coordinate your team to be on the same page and ready for Winton’s initiations. When he jumps up he should lose 30-40% of his HP if your team is ready, not blind, and know how to shoot. In this way, you can go into his bubble and finish him, or make him unable to jump away for free after his bubble is destroyed. If he dances around, just dance better, predict and punish no skill no brain gameplay with precision aiming and movement. Do not play projectiles like gengu or hanjo into him though, you will just tickle him and miss most of your shots. Queen and Hog are good alternatives to Dva, but Dva is just better, flexible and overly busted character rn.

13

Here’s how the bodyguard strat succeeds-

The tank is the most important and impactful role. If you’re mere existence, not even in combat, forces the enemy tank away from the objective or his primary target (in other words his win conditions!) you have an automatic passive advantage perpetually.

Winston cannot win without contesting and taking objective. As the tank his team is extremely reliant on the space he creates with his presence. He cannot, CANNOT contest a reaper or bastion for space.

So you are literally… playing like a tank! And you win the matchup.

Meanwhile, you’re actual tank is able to do as they please.

The next part is where your team comes in- your other dps absolutely needs to have at least mid range (15/18 dps can do this) and your supports should ideally be next to the tank so you can be next to the tank too, and you should all be hunkering around the objective.

I’ll paint a picture- it’s paraíso and you are defending. You’re holding the corner of the objective as reaper, your ram is near you spamming primary. Your ana is staying close to upkeep the tank while being protected.

Winston has to take the objective to unlock payload. Obviously he needs to find an opportunity for a support pick. You are reaper- going after you is foolish. Going after the ram is foolish. Ana? Mmmm :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts: delicious!

But… there’s a reaper next to her…

Ok, so he’ll go after the other support.

Oh. It’s a Moira :disappointed: she will just leave.

Ok. Well, guess he will just pelt your with alt fire and hope his dps gets a pick!

Will they? Really? With no tank presence? I mean maybe but as you can see his entire game plan is foiled and now he’s waiting on YOUR team to make a mistake big enough that he can actually do something.

This will be boring for you and require patience not to go acting crazy. As a dps of course you want to kill. But yo properly beat Winston this way, you are playing supportive in a tank like manner. A bodyguard. Most of it is just being there to deter the enemy from ever striking. If that’s boring for you, just think about how funny it is that your mere presence prevents Winston from playing the game. Kinda amusing right?

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14

Sounds like a very good Winston if he can play around Bastion/Reaper.

Your option would be to keep cool down and never let him engage? His long distance tesla cannon is weak

2 Likes
15

Ignore the people saying “shoot him”

Everybody knows this.

I play Winston a lot, I successfully play him into 3 “counters” including a Bastion and a Reaper and the truth is, if the Winston is really good there’s not much an individual can do.

The reason being, if you really want to counter him you have to work as a team and have good communication.

Co-ordinate your cool downs and damage.

So, sorry to say if that happens you’re kind of screwed but luckily for you, very good Winstons like that are rare and most of them swap whenever they get countered.

16

yeah its weird to me that winston has the best shield in the game

17

Teach me, senpai. A lot of Genji bums always swap to both Reaper and Bastion and i cant rely on dps. What should i do?

1 Like
18

Generally with Reaper you’re going to wait until he’s not with his team to go in.

You have to play around his teleport and be mindful of where he is.

Any time he uses his teleport to get away from his team or dive your back line, that’s your queue to go in.

Why? Because Reaper isn’t there to defend anyone.

Best case scenario, he uses a CD to dive someone, you use that opportunity to try and pick off a support.

Reaper will obviously follow, so when he’s caught up, you just dive back into your team.

Rinse and repeat and if you get a pick, it’s very successful.

If he’s sticking with his supports, that’s fine too because Reaper is useless at range so you’re forcing them to have 1 dps be useless while you create space with bubble and poke with right click.

Bastion is the same deal, you hide when he’s in turret mode, second he’s not, go in and try and pick off a support.

9 times out of 10 their team doesn’t have the communication or co-ordination to shut you down even with Bastion/Reaper.

For example, Reaper will get greedy and want to dive your team, or bastion will go for plays, their supports will position poorly and not respect you etc.

You can also use your bubble in more creative ways.

For example, you want to dive Zen, in front of Zen is reaper and the tank.

You could dive between Zen and Reaper > place your bubble > walk away from your bubble towards the Zen so now Reaper has to walk through your bubble to catch up to you and then > jump away and hopefully you picked off Zen.

TL;DR

Be mindful of their positions, make plays where they’re not and play off of their cooldowns (reaper teleport, bastion turret mode) and be more mindful about how and where you bubble

EDIT
videos like this can help too

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_SRuD0elDI&t=481s

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19

The same way you kill a normal gorilla, with loads of bullets.

20

Thank you for the helpful tips. It seems i was always the one who got impatient and made the first mistake.

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