Hi everyone!
Firstly, just in case someone thought I was gonna tell the community how to reach master rank, you thought wrong. Also, please don’t criticise me for my rank, anything is possible, I might be able to reach master one day!
OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, the actual topic! So, recently I’ve been playing the game like crazy, trying as much as I can to improve, both, my mechanical skill, and my game sense. I don’t think that I’m not making progress, but I would like to know how exactly master rank players got to such a high level of play! I think it would be really interesting if these players could share their experience.
Maybe a response could be something along the lines of; what the rank you first got placed at was, and how you climbed the ranks to get to master.
Thanks in advance,
ChiefCamel
P.S. This is a long term goal of mine, I don’t expect to be in masters within the next month. For all I know, I could still not have achieved this goal by the end of the year.
Edit: I’m doing my best to reply to all of your responses,(which I really appreciate!) but I’m getting this stupid message every time I try to reply to someone saying; ‘please wait for other users to participate before replying’. I think this is because it’s supposed to be a discussion, but I got so many replies so quickly I can’t reply to each of them one by one, because someone else needs to say something before I can say another thing. I just don’t want anyone to think I’m ignoring their post, that’s all.
Honestly just follow the meta and pick one hero out of it spend the hours getting good with them. I did this with winston and now im 3 sr from master. (feelsbadman) I see you play moira be sure to encourage your team to go 4 tank lucio moira com on 2cp and hybrid maps.
Well I picked up overwatch at the beginning of November as a tracer and got placed 1800 silver. I mainly practiced tracer and pretty much one tricked her until plat, and then I started too add a few tanks and a support in. But I still tried to play Dp’s as much as possible. I ended up getting to masters around the end of January, playing mainly tracer, soldier, hog Orissa. 90% Dps. The main things I would look for are just knowing how and when to engage properly and being able to spot weak points in the enemy team and kill that weak point.(as dps) being able to pressure the frontline hard (as tank) and as support seeing the weak spots on ur team and giving those spots some love. I only play solo q I’m not sure if u stack or solo q but the biggest tip I can give is analyze how good ur teammates are and then play around them, never make 5 random ppl play around you and don’t expect them to make the plays u would make or have a brain sometimes they will though🤪 anyway good luck the most important thing is just grinding and learning ur mistakes when u grind
This is how I did it.
- Played heroes I thought I was good at for half a season
- Halfway through the season, look at my hero win rates and stop playing anything below 50% if at all possible.
- As I rank up and I become less effective at some of my better heroes, stop playing those one also.
Eventually I was left with a few heroes I could reach my max rank at, which was Masters.
Your max rank right now might be a lot lower, so focus on reaching what you can.
Is good to focus in your best perfomance heroes, but if he is new at OW he should try to play all heroes a bit to learn their mechanics to be more efective against them.
I originally got placed in bronze (~33 old rank) back in season 1, but since then I’ve been able to climb to a high of ~4200SR last season. I’m a tank and support main, so I don’t have many mechanical tips for you. I’ll more talk about how to help teams work with you and how to improve general gameplay. Honestly at least half of getting to high ranks is being a good team player. I know more than a few great players who always get angry at their team and goad them into throwing, so they can never climb.
Point 0: I assume that “don’t be toxic” goes without saying.
IMO the first thing is to 100% be a team player. You don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) flex to every hero, but have 3 or 4 good heroes in at least 2 roles. If you’re asked to switch (no matter how rudely), say something along the lines of “I’d be happy to swap to help with x problem, but I’m a terrible y. I could swap to z or w if that helps?” If you want to ask someone else to switch, say something like “I’m really struggling with x problem. Could our y swap to z or w to help me out?” This both directly helps counter the enemy team, and also sets a good example for teammates.
Second, talk in voice. Even if it’s just to say “great ult” or “thanks for the peel”, talking even a little helps a ton with team coordination and makes toxicity less likely. There have been so many times that just talking a little caused other people to turn on their mics and work together more. Sometimes being really friendly will even guilt a thrower into trying hard. Even if nobody ever replies, as long as people are in VC you’re probably doing some good. Talking too much and clogging comms is a concern at higher ranks, but it’s still way better to talk too much than to not talk at all.
Third, don’t be the guy who thinks he’s team coach. Calling shots like “group up” or “push left” is absolutely great and does help a lot, but don’t start calling out players for minor mistakes or forcing everyone to swap to exactly the comp you want. Be flexible with your teammates. And remember that if you do try and cause swaps, phrase it as a suggestion or a plea for help rather than a demand or insult.
Fourth, try to improve. Don’t blame teammates, even in your head. Sometimes teammates really are to blame - e.g. genji said “nano me I’ve got blade” and then jumped off a cliff. But around 90% of the time, there’s something you personally could have done to win that game. It’s easy to pick out the flaws in others, but harder to see them in yourself.
Finally, don’t care about your rank, and don’t care about your stats. Personally I never even watch the SR go up or down at the end of a game, and I literally can’t remember the last time I checked my stats page. All I really care about is playing my absolute best. If I don’t win that’s ok, as long as I played well and tried hard. That’s a lot more likely to help you rank up than thinking “oh no my accuracy is down 3%” or “I only gained 5SR for that win, FML.”
Mechanical skill and understanding broad strategy comes with time, and I don’t have any tips for suddenly mastering these parts of the game. But I do believe that the biggest difference at high ranks is friendliness and team coordination. Sure, many streamers get pretty agitated and toxic - it’s their job to have strong personalities. But in general, high ranks are a more friendly place where people care less about the meta and work with teammates - even toxic teammates -
to build a solid comp and strategy. The best way to get there is to act like you already are.
Here is how to get Master:
- Play lots of Quickplay until your teams consist mostly of GM and Master players.
- Do your 10 placment matches (around 50% winrate is ok)
- Instant Master rank.
#dislike
So you typed in a misleading title?!?! how dare you!
Why should I read you’re post
So I started in gold. OW is my first fps, so my first placement was around 2.3, then I dropped to 1.9 and climbed all the way to career high of 3.9. The thing is though, the reason I was in gold instead of plat was actually because of my PC. I was playing on 20fps and 50% render scale, my average scope % on ana was 44%. The moment I upgraded my pc it went up to 70% and I climbed by 600sr within days. So that’s the first thing, you want to have a good pc.
2nd, I was a support main. People notoriously cry about being unable to climb with supports and that’s wrong, supports can climb as well as anyone else. Yes you will have problems with PPBS when the games are extremely one sides but you will still climb if you play meta support (ex. I played Ana in s3, Mercy 5-7, I was basically a one trick during those seasons on those supports, on other seasons it was a bit more mixed).Play the strongest heroes in the game, they are the strongest for a reason. Oh yeah you can abuse PPBS with the torbs and the syms, but if you are a genji one trick you’ll climb much faster than the said torb and symm anyway, because genji is just better in all situations plus no one will be toxic to you.
3rd. Improve your gamesense first, mechanics only matter after mid diamond. Yeah below that it doesn’t matter, most people can’t aim or are just average, so you climb with gamesense up to around 3.3. You need to be able to tell where an ult is coming from, and you need to quickly recognize how you can shut it down. If you are currently a type of person that is dying to dva bombs (I know below plat that is extremely common) there is your main concern, your awareness.
You also need to be able to read the killfeed, if you see you are down 3 people, if you press Q you are throwing. If your killfeed says your healers just died and you are asking for healing, there’s another problem to fix right there. Always make sure you recognize who is alive on your team and the enemy team.
Killfeed is also a great source of info about ults, obviously, who used what. Press tab often to see who has ult on your team, not to look at your medals. If you can’t tell who has what ult on the enemy team, watch your kill cams, although you should learn to estimate how close they are on ult %.
4th, pick a role, yeah people will tell you to be flexible. Flexing is great but you still want to specialize in a role and you want to main heroes. If you are a support main, you probably want to play the strongest Main Healer (Used to be Ana, then Mercy, now it’s Moira). If you are a dps, pick dps you love and master them, make sure the dps you choose to master can deal in any situations. What I mean is, maybe you choose to be a Pharah main, but you are having trouble against enemy mccree, well it’s a good thing your 2nd most played is soldier then isn’t it. Tanks are similar to supports, choose if you are a main tank (orisa/rein/winston) or off tank (hog/zarya/dva), although you want to be able to play all the available MTs or OTs because there as so few of them and comps as basically built upon tanks (OTs are easier to climb with btw).
Lastly, be nice. Yup be nice, don’t be toxic. If you make friends while climbing and duo que you’ll have a much easier time. I mostly solo qued but I did have moments when I found a nice person and we duo qued and went on win streaks together. And also, if you have time, theory craft when you are getting the most wins (what day and time). I for example, after season 4 understood that I should never play on weekends, and Wednesdays were usually the days I went on small win streaks.
I did my placements at the very end of last season, got placed in low gold, and rose to master at the end of this season. So effectively it took me one full season to climb from gold to master. Here is what I can tell you from my experience.
Firstly, in order to get to master you must be able to play like a master or at the very least a high diamond and get lucky enough to be carried a few games once you get close. I felt that there was a noticeably significant increase in level of play every 200 SR or so.
You will not be as good at every hero equally. You must identify which heroes you are good at. There are an abundance of statistical sites and apps you can use to make these determinations. Play the heroes you are good at if you want to climb. If you want to increase your hero pool and get better with other heroes, keep in mind that is an investment that will lower your SR because you will lose more often than you otherwise could be.
Along these lines, lock in the hero you’re best at first and then see what people start locking in as well. If you lock in a DPS but if 2-3 other people also lock in DPS, be flexible to change to a tank or support. If you are stubborn you will lose. Team comp is more important than any individual’s “carry” ability.
If someone asks you to switch. Just switch. It doesn’t matter what your medals look like. Someone thinks you’re a problem on the team and they are tilting because of it. If one person thinks you’re a problem and is already vocal about it, they probably aren’t the only one. It is better to just switch and play a different hero than have people on your team tilt or throw because you refused. They do that.
Make suggestions for strategies you think will work. People will often be willing to at least give it a try if you take a leadership role. If you think that bastion strat or quad tank would work, call for it. People can’t read your mind and will just play what they want unless someone directs them into a strategy. Don’t get mad if people don’t listen though. Sometimes 5 people will buy into a strategy while the 6th person does their own thing. Don’t worry about it and just try to make it work.
SoloQ is better than grouping. Probably not a popular opinion but I took stats on it and my win rate is consistently higher solo. My theory for it is when you group Q the matchmaker will pair you against other groups of similar size. Groups are typically harder because they are more likely to form a decent team comp. If you soloQ you will still be matched with groups and you can work with them. While if you are the group you will be matched with more randoms that may not be willing to adjust like you are.
Lastly, you will encounter a lot of trolls, throwers, leavers, toxicity and all the like. A lot of your games will be unwinnable. Don’t worry about it. Just keep playing and win the ones that are winnable. It takes a long time to climb. A lot longer than people think or are willing to admit. Climbing isn’t easy but it’s doable. That’s why it’s called a grind.
Long answer short, communicate and think. From what i remember from Silver is that a lot of players have the mechanical potential to get higher, but don’t use it to the max.
They don’t communicate while either defending or attacking, and if they communicate, most time it is just unrelated (trying to be funny stuff). Like a 10 year old would do in minecraft.
This game is not minecraft, communication is key. When pushing, try to get your team to push together, or decide specific roles. Such as “Winston dive Widow” are very important. Try to group up, and as Roadhog (I’ve seen u “main” it), try to Hook an enemy, get a pick and then attack. A 6v5 is almost always a win situation.
When i was Silver, i always thought my team was holding me back. And yes, sometimes they do, but most of the time, you’re just not thinking. I started watching the pro league’s and play with some friends. We started communicating, and most importantly, I started thinking, I wasn’t pushing alone, I figured out what hero’s i played best and trained on them. We got sooooo much higher in just 2 seasons. Where is was silver/bronze in my first seasons, i have reached Diamond in this season. And no, I’m not master, have never been, but I know for 99% sure that i once will be. Because we all keep improving, so LEARN, learn from your mistakes as I did, and keep doing so.
![:exploding_head:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/exploding_head.png?v=5" ":exploding_head:")
Would a question mark at the end help?
You make it sound easy!
Honestly just follow the meta and pick one hero out of it spend the hours getting good with them.
Thanks for the advice though!
I realize the comp playbase is actually good. I used to soloQ as sp all the time and I remind my teammates that I’m always behind the tanks so if they require healing then make sure radio chatting or come to me. Tbh a major amount of matches my team do very well and climbing to Master is easy.
So, you’d say that in the lower ranks you can rank up just using one hero? And yes, I solo q by the way, in case anyone else was wondering.
You can, the problem you will face in lower ranks is that you’ll have a bunch of dps players and no tanks/support or maybe 1 tank and 1 support. So until plat around 2.6 your best bet is actually climbing with self-sufficient heroes.
Tracer is such hero, so is Moira, Hog, Soldier, and Mercy (yeah people say she depends on team’s positioning but if you really master her movement it doesn’t matter and you are able to carry by just healing a lot and staying alive, although this probably doesn’t apply to you but I thought I’d say it considering I am speaking from experience.) Dva can also fall into this category but depends on how you use her and I can’t really say anything about that.
But I personally wouldn’t suggest one tricking any hero, because there will come a point where that hero just does not work and you need something to fall back on. I’ve had reins/soldiers/tracer one tricks who cost me games and it’s upsetting.
Never heard of something like a max rank, do you mean like, once I reach my ‘max rank’ I simply can’t get any better at the game? Also, that sounds like a good idea, looking at my win rate for my mains and playing the ones with higher win rates.
Max rank just means as far as you can realistically climb on any hero.
I am probably close to GM level Rein.
If i played doomfist I would probably be silver.
I’m currently level 120, I got the game in early December last year, and I think I’ve learnt most of the hero’s mechanics and play styles.
Flex, if youre good you get there in time, if you lack the game sense and skill you should be able to recognize that so focus on communicating with your team and improving your mains