How does one climb from the lower ranks as support?

General Discussion
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I typically play Mercy, Moira, and the occasional Lifeweaver. I’m really trying to improve positioning, overall environmental awareness, and contribute to my team the most I can. That said, I feel like, for support (at least the hero’s I play), it’s contingent on the ability of the dps to secure kills and for the tank to make space. Unfortunately, at the silver ranks, none of that is really happening, or at least, not consistently.

So how does one find themselves actually climbing out of the lower ranks as support? How does the rank system determine your rank? Is it my individualistic performance, team performance, a little bit of both? Because on paper, my success is based on the teams success.

Any insight would be most appreciative. Till then, I’ll just keep at it and continue working on my game mechanics <3

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Dunno. Win games I guess. Devs say it’s only win/loss that affects rank.

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I have no clue, fam. I dropped to silver as support and have been stuck there even if I consistently do the dps or tanks job for them while healing more than the other support. It is dreadful. It’s the only rank I actually want to climb on so that I can play with my sistah spice again, but… I just can’t? The games are easier than even I could imagine. But I just keep losing regardless.

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You won’t like this answer as a Mercy and LW player, but you go on the offense and get kills yourself. Not to the exclusion of healing, certainly. But when the opportunities are there.

At lower ranks, healing is inherently less valuable than it is at higher ranks. So rather than try to heal your teammate through a duel they MAY win, it is often times better to turn that into a 2v1 damage duel that you almost certainly win.

Alternatively, from the healing standpoint, focus less on big healing numbers and more on WHERE AND WHEN you are healing. Are you enabling your tank/dps to secure kills and win duels? Are you keeping your tank alive to escape sticky situations where they would otherwise die? Did you keep a dps alive long enough to earn a fight changing ultimate? Just having high healing output isn’t actually that useful, but making sure your healing is actually having an IMPACT on the round goes a long way.

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I went from 600 sr when I first started to T500 with mostly Mercy solo queue. My biggest tips are to THINK about every single thing you’re doing and how it’s helping you win, and adjust your playstyle to what your team needs in order to win. And do aim training. lol Focus on your own gameplay like any other skill that you need to practice at. Can’t say much more without seeing gameplay. If you’re better, you’ll climb. Good luck!

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Imo securing picks as Lifeweaver is pretty crucial

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Agree with some of the others, I don’t know if you played OW1 or not, but OW2 is a different game. As support, you have to remember that YOU ARE NOT A HEALER. You are a support. You need to support the teams in more ways then just healing. That means getting off your butt and getting kills your self.

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  • You group with someone that’s decent because it limits the matchmaker power to throw games for you. It gives you a massive advantage.

  • Play Zen. But you have to be smart. Zen is the ultimate low rank carry because you just throw your orb on people and dps. Then when someone inevitably does something stupid, you trans. Trans is the only healing in the game that can heal through stupid and there’s a lot of stupid in low rank. People will cry for you to switch a LOT. Ignore them. That’s how I climbed my support.

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Thanks everyone! So I’ve been taking your advice’s and I’ve been noticing that a lot of the moments where I try to get pieces of damage, the fights are a lot more close, as if that extra piece of damage is all we need to win. This is def a bit of a change in mentality for me but so far is yielding better results in terms of the fights and the outcome of the games

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Stop relying on your team for your success. Be more proactive and figure out how to get as much value as possible. You have to figure out how to carry and keep improving. You are only in control over your own gameplay and are the only common denominator in your games, so no sense blaming your team.

If you have any replay codes I can give you in depth advice but idk what you specifically are struggling with based on this post.

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below diamond you go bap or kiri and just dps your way through the ranks

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do it yourself. you play moira right? she is great at making space and securing kills in lower ranks.

unfortunately, mercy wont get you very far. she has genuinely 0 carry potential in metal ranks and is entirely dependant on her team.

according to the devs, win/loss is the only factor in your ranking but im not entirely sure how truthful that is.

i climbed from silver to gm1 support over like 10-15 seasons purely by playing moira. its hard, but its possible.

this is the most important. mechanics mean very little in lower ranks. my mechanics arent incredible, as i mostly play non aim intensive heros like kiri, brig, moira and mercy. its purely my game sense that has gotten me this far.

tldr; take matters into your own hands. dont rely on your team to get kills, make space or heal you. its unconventional and it may upset your teammates but its the fastest route to ranking up. it will be hard, and you will lose games, but your far more likely to rank up by being selfish then selfless.

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Drop a replay code if you can and people can take a look at where you might be having issue.s

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I’d also suggest playing really no more than 3-4 heroes. I prefer my 2 supports.

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play more dps aggressive characters like bap, ana, kiri or zen. Considering how blizzard babies the support role, you can heal whilst dealing out damage that would overwhelm the average low rank support.

If you want to stay with your three picks, you can play more aggressively as moira because low rank teams do not peel for their teammates, so go for supports and fade back to teammates when the enemies start targeting you.

The ranked system in overwatch is pretty scuffed, the most reliable way to climb out is to (obviously) win your games. If you want to climb fast, play with friends so you have some sort of coordination.

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PLAY. LIKE. YOU. KNOW what your doing! Silver players don’t have confidence and Im not just talking dueling the widow hell Im talking like engaging with sound barrier, or speed boost, leading the fight, starting off with your ult and not waiting for another person even for a second, taking 1v1s going HAARRRD in the paint!

Heck as lw you should be killing you should be making plays hell you should be in they back line but you ain’t ready for all that yet so ignore that for now. You can alsonuse tree to block spawn doors and secure points completely.

I know some crap is “Funny” or “memey” but you notice you doing it and you aint climbing right? Do you pull out the glock as mercy especially during valk?

Do. You. Die. On. Point. Please tell me you do because if you tell me you try to escape (and die) more then tou die on point sweety you belong in bronze Im just saying. (Im only half joking because gms still haven’t put this stuff together).

If you wanna get out of silver ACT LIKE IT! Because I’ve been to like gold when I was playing open que I murder every damn person in the lobby as lifeweaver I was winning fights left and right because I just straight up didn’t belong there.

To get out of silver PLAY LIKE YOU DON’T BELONG THERE!

in higher ranks everyones already past this point thats why if by some whimsical way we find our way in lower ranked games no matter the hero (almost) its 1 sided.

Because we know we don’t belong there AND WE PLAY LIKE IT!

Have you considered actually playing the game? Have you considered using your cool downs? What are you waiting for who are you waiting for? What you think solo killing that person and prioritizing your life isn’t important? None of that matters if your dead?

Thank you enemy team for being so patient until my dps got a pick, your onlt banking on the fact that the enemy team is silver so they should make mistakes like this… the one’s who want to climb don’t… and you better be assuming every single last person on that team wants to climb.

And the fact that there just “Winging by” that there just “Winning because 1 team or the other has to win” the fact that they want to climb the way I told you but don’t know how and YOU do that’s the best advantage you could possibly have.

In higher ranks if you playin overwatch and you don’t want ALLLLLL of the smoke (when applicable) then why play the game?

“But I have to heal” I do to but guess what( i know what Im doing.

“But I have to stay with the team” I go on the flank as weaver sometimes in freaking masters because I know I can.

“But I have to out heal all the damage”
Dead people can’t do damage sweaty.

I know Im talking kinndddaa brutal? I’m not trying to be like hurtful or anything I really hope Im not, Point is have confidence (this is the kind of confidence I have when I’m in low ranked gameds) and act like you. Know. What. The. Hell. You’re. Doing.

And I guarantee you’ll sail past silver

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Play supports with more impact like Ana or bap

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I’ve been there… and the way out is, unfortunately, being a carrying superhero, like way better than your teammates. I can tell you as Mercy (what I mostly play in ranked), that your use of dmg boost is absolutely critical.

Only boost the teammate that’s worth it. While it’s obviously more damage with a more accurate teammate, your time is wasted boosting someone who is inaccurate. You also get ult gain a lot slower if you’re not getting dmg amplified credit. Take the first minute to see who is worth boosting. You need ult gain.

Boost ults if you can. Even in upper diamond I sometimes see Mercy stand right next to an ulting Bastion while they pocket someone else. Lots of ults can be boosted, even B.O.B… A boosted Bastion triple kill is very satisfying.

Mercy’s ult is not as weak as naysayers claim. If your team is together in a team fight, e.g. Ram, Reaper, Genji, Moira… and you ult, a team-wide dmg boost is absurdly strong. Also using it to chase enemy Widow is a skill you need, but smurfs are going to show you quickly if you can do that.

Sometimes I save Mercy’s ult for some enemy ults, to avoid getting killed. Junkrat as one of my favorites, for a chance to kill him from the air if he wasn’t in a room.

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Your rank is decided on your W/L Ratio. Naturally, the more games you win, the higher win rate you have and this pushes you up through the ranks. As far as we have been told, its mostly on the W/L ratio and little to do with performance and or stats.

However IMO, to climb out of lower ranks relies on improving a few things:

Positioning - Know where to optimally position on all the maps with a given hero and where and when to rotate is crucial. When you die, ask yourself why you died, where were you standing, why are you standing there and what was your plan? You will die in fights, it happens. Im not talking about team kills or simply catching a HS from a hanzo. Pay attention to where you are and why you are there.

Game Sense - Simply knowing that a Genji might have blade the next fight, or Rein having hammer allows you to make better decisions on where, what and how you will play in anticipation of the enemies Ultimate plays. In low ELO/Rank there really isnt much coordination with ults so tracking them is as easy as paying attention to when the last time you seen the enemy use their ults, how they behave when they have them or how far along your own team is on theirs.

Counter picking. - If you are support and know that the enemy is running phara mercy, then playing a support hero who isn’t good at range/hitscan against Phara may cost you games. Always be willing to play a wide variety of heros so that you can make swaps if your team isn’t willing to. You’ll be surprised on how much a hero swap can change the outcome of team fights and you don’t have to be GOD TIER either. Obviously don’t play heros you have no clue how they work. Do that in QP.

Avoid soft throwing - Specifically taking High risk low reward plays. This might sound strange since we all see pro and higher elo players make crazy plays but i have seen may lower elo games where players just mindlessly make risky plays that mostly end in losing the team fight. On the off chance it works, cool :person_shrugging:t2:. But don’t think its a literal strategy to win. Just keep in mind how much risk you are taking in a fight and mitigate or offset it by responding to it appropriately.

Don’t rely on your teammates all the time - Support players are notorious for assuming that DPS will peel for them and that the other healer will back them up. While that becomes more common in higher ranks, its not common in low rank. Just dont assume your teamates are going to do anything but press button in hope they get POTG. Take matters into your own hands, this comes down to practice and taking the 1v1 flanks on tracer, genji, sombra etc. In low elo i see supports get harassed by a tracers or sombras, ignore them and assume that theres nothing they can do and that their the DPS is going to do something. Start fighting back. Even mercy can 1v1 in these situation if you are caught out. DOnt just stand there. I have fought off tracers and sombras as a mercy many times. The funny part about this in low elo is that the they dont expect you to put up a fight and most might panic, back off or at best you can secure a pick. Trust me, no one wants to get out played by a support player as DPS.

Stop pressing Q when others do (Unless its a coordinated attempt). This is a bad habit in low ELO. Most players panic and all press Q (Ult) at the same time because they hear everyone else doing it. STOP. If your team is using anymore than 2 ults in 1 fight, your most likely wasting one of them. Dont waste your ult.

Stop holding your ult - I know i just said to stop pressing Q all the time. But also, dont hold your ult for too long. There are a few heros in the game, that can hold thier ult for a bit for the right time, but if you know your ult counters the enemy team in making a play, then go for it. It will happen that sometimes you throw your ult. It happens at high ELO too, but be mindful of how long you have it for and learn from the mistakes.

Review Replays - Doing this allows you to see where you could have done better. After a loss on a game you think you should have won, take a peak at the replay and try to spot mistakes you make as well as potential opportunities you missed to make a team fight sway in your favor.

These are just some of the things to look into. Each Rank has its own set of skills you will need to improve on as you rise through them. So dont think what works in Silver will work in Plat and what works in Gold will work in Diamond etc. As you get higher in rank, so do all the other players skills so you will need to sharpen your own skills again as well.

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DAMAGE. You can’t climb fast unless you’re carrying your games. Healing can’t do that.

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