Learn ultimate combinations, some famous ones include:
Nano Boost + Dragon Blade
Graviton Surge + Dragonstrike
Tactical Visor + Kitsune Rush
Learn who counters who:
Zarya > D.Va
Tracer > Widowmaker
Reaper > Winston
Torbjorn > Tracer
However don’t get confused, counters doesn’t always mean beating a hero, like Torb countering Tracer, his turret denies a lot of space for Tracer and makes it harder for her to fulfill her role.
A lot of factors are important to carry, such as game sense, positioning, mechanical skill, awareness, map knowledge, aim etc.
Train your aim or play heroes that doesn’t require much aim:
Junkrat
Mercy
Moira
Reinhardt
Torbjorn
Communicate, Overwatch is a team-based game, so effective communication with your team is vital.
Learn about the current meta, who you should play and who you should avoid playing (Wifeleaver, Roadhog)
Learn about each category’s role, Tanks makes up space, DPS take angles and pressure the enemy team, Support heals and enable some of the fights (e.g. Ana nade). As a Support you must never heal bot that’s one of the worst thing you could do.
Just watch a Youtube guides for the given heroes you enjoy playing. Try to practice each tip and thus skill, one or two at a time. Don’t just try everything all at once.
First thing to try master is positioning. Positioning is more important than aim and mechanics in this game. There are many videos online that tell you how to position well for each hero.
A great channel to watch imo is Awkward. He does educational unranked to GM’s and constantly reiterates what he is doing every time he does something. Just watching that will nail the tactics into your mind.
I think the opposite. If Sombra is their favourite hero, they should play and learn the hero they want to play and learn. Whatever hero you learn, you still have to relearn any and all new playstyles of heroes you haven’t touched yet.
All essential skills required in Overwatch aka positioning and map awareness, tracking ultimates and cooldowns, learning what other heroes ultimates and cooldowns are, can be learnt on every hero, including and especially Sombra.
Sombra is a great hero to learn the maps and learn what other heroes abilities are via watching their enemy. Aka go invis, watch the enemy, how they position on what hero, how they use their abilities, etc…
Either disable chat or ignore people who insult you because it will never stop. Even as a gm player I get insulted by golds/plats because according to them, I’m bad. A thick skin is required to play this game.
Focus on improvement, not winning. I recommend watching streamers, educational youtube videos, etc. Caring about wins/rank too much will drive you insane.
Hey friend I’m high masters and about to hit grandmaster in ranked, I’m 100% down to personally help you out with some tips and such. Let me know when you see this and I’ll arrange adding you
Don’t listen to any of these people and just listen to what I say and trust me.
Play Lucio. At least at first. Do not worry about all the other characters. Sombra is cool but she is a niche hero. Get off her. Become the frog man. You’ll help your team way more as a beginner and as you get better Lucio has a high skill ceiling so he’ll reward you as you get better. High skill floor, high skill ceiling. The absolute best of both worlds and he’s fun to play.
I am a master level player on Lucio. Follow my advice and I promise you will at least climb to low diamond rank.
Turn off voice chat. Its a distraction and I promise you it wont help. Nobody responds to voice commands well. Concentrate on the game.
Do set your ping key and ping often. If you are getting jumped on or you see an enemy low health or way out of position ping them. Its that easy. No stupid voice chat required.
Stick with your tank. Do not follow directly behind him but a little bit back and off to the side. Ideally you want the tank near the edge of your aura. Try to stay close to a wall so you can move. Keep a corner near you so you can retreat if you need to.
Aura usage is simple. If your tank is moving forward or back you are on speed. If your tank stops stay on heals. If you are trying to get to someone to heal them you are on speed until you get there.
Amp usage. When you see your tank move in and start taking damage use the amp. If you see a squishy low on hp speed + wall ride over to them and amp to heal them. If you maintain proper spacing from your tank you’ll keep most of your team in your aura and heal like crazy all game.
Ult usage. Don’t overthink this either. When your team is alive and they lock horns with the other team just use it. Don’t try to get fancy and wait until your team gets in trouble. Either you will die trying to cast it or one of your teammates will die befofe you get it off. Cast it proactively not reactively. Try to farm as many as you can per game using them as soon as its reasonable.
DPS. Spam, spam, spam. Pop out from cover shoot a couple bursts, pop out shoot a couple bursts, wall ride to the other side to keep them guessing, pop out again and shoot a couple more bursts. If anyone gets close to you boop everytime to sprinkle in that extra damage.
Target priority. If you shoot into the mass of enemies while they are grouped up you are bound to hit people and build up ult charge as long as you don’t overstay your welcome and overexpose yourself. Just keep strafing keep popping in and out of cover. If your tank starts beating up on a guy shoot that. If you see your dps going hard to take a guy out split for a second and try to help confirm the kill. It’s that simple. When the battle is out of poke phase and teams are locked horns you are going for the assists.
Don’t trickle in. If your teammates start dying and you are 2 members down and they haven’t lost any start retreating but stay engaged with the enemy so its a tactical retreat instead of a rout. Turn on backwards wall ride in setting and you’ll learn to wall ride backwards as you get better. Keep shooting back while you back up. Find your teammates respawning and ferry them back with speed trying to regroup for next fight. You may have to save someone trying to get out.
Wall riding. Whereever you are at stay close the wall. Don’t hold wall ride cause you move slower and you gain momentum as you kick off walls. Just spam jump every second or so kicking yourself in the direction you want. As you get better you’ll learn to hop from spot to spot (become the frog).
Enjoy yourself. If comp stresses you out play quickplay where nobody cares.
Ok, A lot of people are saying stay out of chat. Personally, I like the chat feature, some actually call out and strategize. Yes, there are a lot of toxic players, best advice grow a backbone, or just ignore them.
As far as game play, practice range is a good place to warm up and get used to controls and learn each character’s abilities, then practice vs ai on hard mode, some of the player made games are helpful as well. There usually is an aim trainer there.
The newest feature in the practice range, the shooting range can be helpful as well. you can set if you want targets or bots, make them move or stand still, and set how far away you want them from you.
spend time in QP. its ok to lose a bunch of games when you are new, using youtube for char vids is helpful for certain aspects, like when they talk about timing and engagement etc, but the only thing that will help the most is the daily grind- get those games in whether win or lose you will never get better if you dont try
internet for ‘im better than you’ -
i always suggest people play on low graphic settings this may help
The most important thing is to do is to disable chat.
If you want to keep the chat (so you can see the callouts) but there’s a player being rude or insulting you, remember this: never engage / reply them because you can actually get suspended for that. My suggestion is to simply report them and move on / ignore them.
Also, play a couple rounds of Player VS AI to learn different hero / strategy.
Player VS AI also the least toxic of all gamemode and people in your team generally being chill towards new player.
First of welcome! Dont let the people here fool you. OW is a good game and if you enjoy it, good for you (I also enjoy it for what it is).
Like others said: disable the chat. People dont see that you are a new player and most often than not, you will play with people who have maybe more playtime, but lack in other aspects that they are at the same level as you. You should not listen to people in the game period. They can be very mean at times.
I can say a few things about the characters, just so that you know why some of them are not viable at all times (maybe). But play what you enjoy:
Brig is a hard hero to master. She is a hero that seem like a frontliner, but is more a protector. Stay behind the tank and always let the enemy come to you (except for the ult). Keep you passive healing up with whip shot, so that you generate value. Use cover as much as possible and use the bash to flee or finish a target and not to start a fight.
Lucio is like Brig, but mostly played as a DPS support to get full value. His healing is “trash healing” aka “none effective healing” and he should be played mostly with speed or when you need healing. Wallriding is the most effective way to move around with him.
Junkrat is a fun hero that has a high skill cap. To reliable hit the shots can be difficult, but all in all a decent hero with a lot of burst damage. Spaming into a choke can work wonders in lower ranks He is very weak to snipers, long range heroes and to Dva and Sigma as tanks. Counterpicking will be a point later in the game tho.
Reaper is a good vanilla hero. He has basic abilities and is pretty decent. Dont flank, and work with your tank on the frontline.
One thing tho: Pharah is your worst nightmare vs your lineup. I recommend also training hitscan heroes like 76, Ashe, Cassy, bastion or Bap, just for the case that you fight against one.
There are a few “evergreen heroes” in the game that are always decent. Maybe not meta, but fit in every comp and people will not really complain. Maybe give them a try (if you like anyone of them that is! Play what you find fun!):
“Difference”. Mostly used to shot the stat difference in the scoreboard. If you tank us way underperforming in comparison (maybe kills, deaths or damage), people might call a “tank diff” to insult the tankplayer. It mostly is toxic and does not fix the problem.
Turn down the quality in the settings. I mostly play on medium where everything still looks very good, but is not as distracting as in High or Ultra.
He is very weak to snipers, long range heroes and to Dva and Sigma as tanks. Counterpicking will be a point later in the game tho.