"NO BRAIN NO AIM." - The Mechanical Skill Fallacy

General Discussion
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THANK YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT AND LOVE, HOWEVER MANY OF YOU ARE CONFUSED SO LOOK UP MY ADDENDUM

People talk about trolls, throwers, smurfs, boosters, and toxicity being issues in Overwatch.

But let’s talk about the Elitism with mechanical based heroes vs non mechanical based heroes.

"No brain no aim" heros =/= no skill =/= easy to master/low skill ceiling."

There’s not a day that goes by where I see a YouTuber (such as a Hanzo main who needed a Zarya or Rein main to help him/her reach Masters/GM), or a forum post, or a Reddit Post, about “non-mechanical aim heroes” and how they’re a “problem” and “ruining” OW.

Here’s the thing:

Mechanical aim =/= someone who automatically understands the game. This isn’t CoD or Battlefield or CSGO, aim doesn’t truly win games.

Understanding of the game, timing, positioning, communication, strategy, and one’s personal skill are what wins games AS A TEAM.

Congrats on your POTG ult… But we lost. Why, because you held it just to get POTG and to stroke your ego about “carrying” and then flamed your supports for not healing, the Sym/Torb/Sombra for not switching, the Rein or Winston for not pushing forward, or for the DPS for not killing the annoying Tracer that keeps flanking you.

Characters like Rein and Winston don’t take “Mechanical Aim” , yet both require the skills listed as stated before and have an extremely high skill ceiling. A Rein can hold his shield up and just move forward, but a Rein can also take a risky flank and back shatter an enemy team, thus winning the game.

A Winston can use his ult to stall, however a Winston can also use his ult to get back to the fight faster than any character in the game, as well as push enemies back into the radius of a damage ult, push enemies off edges of some maps, etc.

But “No Brain No Aim Heros are Anti Fun.”

Just because one character requires Mechanical Skill and one doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily make another more or less fun.

You know what’s not fun? Getting spawn killed or 180 degree killed by a Tracer.

However you know what sucks for a Tracer? Being discorded and dying from a random Trashmouse bomb or Helix Rocket or Pharah rocket in one hit.

“But Pharah can shoot rockets in the sky and kill most characters in 2 hits”

Yes, but Pharah also is projectile based and to maximize one’s ability with pharah, it requires timing.

You know what sucks for a Pharah? Having D’va eat your ult charging you and you end up dying from your own splash damage.

“But Moira’s Orbs and beam.”

You know what sucks as a Moira, getting hooked by Hog, getting both your Healing/Damage Orbs eaten by D’va, getting your ult cancelled by Hog/Cree/Bri, etc.

“But D’va’s defense Matrix , ult, and missiles.”

You know what sucks as a D’va? Being killed after you use your ult, Being hacked by Sombra, frozen by Mei, charged by Rein after you re-mech, flanked by a Reaper, etc.

“But trashmouse just spams grenades and things die.”

You know what sucks for a trashmouse, being killed in mid air from using your mines to elevate yourself, or being killed by a random Hanzo/Widow/Pharah shot.

“But Sombra’s hack/emp.”

You now what sucks for a Sombra? Having your translocator guarded with trashmouse trap over it, then being killed by an enemy player; Having your EMP denied by a Zen, etc.

Conclusion:

It’s a team based game and characters have roles. Just because YOU personally prefer mechanical based heroes doesn’t mean YOU are always carrying your games, using more fun heroes, and ultimately YOU are better than a player who mains a hero that doesn’t need said mechanics to thrive.

-E.G.

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There is sooooooo much that goes into learning the game and I love it for that. Unlike games such as R6: Siege, you can’t always just master one character and expect all you skills to transfer to the next. Playing a Buck vs Sledge is not the same as going from a Widowmaker to a Reinhardt. Each hero can require vastly different skill sets and that is awesome in my opinion. It also make this game one of the hardest on the market to excel in.

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You hear but “TF2/Team Fortress” clone argument so much and it’s very misleading. The vast majority of TF2 characters require mechanical aim. You can just play 1 characters and be set.

But in Overwatch its not the case at all. Overwatch has such a diverse selection of characters. There’s Top 500 players who play only tanks.

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To be fair ,if this happens you need to git gud ,you can fade out of hook (he can never kill you at full hp due to hitbox ,and you can just fade before the hook even gets to you) ,you don’t have to throw healing orbs at the enemy d.va and you really shouldn’t coalesence that close to a mccree or brigitte (as for hook, you can easily dodge it at range due to increased move speed.)

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The problem is mechanical skill heroes aren’t worth playing anymore over all the hold mouse1 to win stuff.

People aren’t rewarded for getting good at the game. In a mechanical sense.

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every hero takes positioning and game sense thus making any hero that doesn’t take aim effectively easier, then when you add a hero like moira that doesn’t have to carefully watch their positioning either because she can escape damn near all cc and flanks and worst of all ults. yeah we kinda have a point here with no aim no brain.

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whoosh.

20 characters.

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What did I miss ?

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so you’re telling me the people who can widow pop-up and one shot people before they even know she’s up are useless? Or someone who can land a full tracer clip in someones face ? or someone who can headshot as mcree consistently to pin down flankers and back line DPS?
Aim has it’s rewards, but expecting ONLY aim to beat all heroes is silly.

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Actually… don’t worry about it. I think the whoosh goes to me instead as I just misenterpreted a bunch of stuff.

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A D’va can charge you and eat your orbs.

A McCree or Bri can easily flank you.

A hog can easily back hook you, etc. its OW, crazy stuff happens all the time.

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I mean they aren’t useless, it’s just playing something like Junkrat instead of McCree pays off a lot easier with far less practise or effort involved.

Same thing for Ana vs Moira / Mercy / Brigitte. Also has to do with Ana just being plain underpowered and powercreeped.

Tracer is one of the only mechanical skill heroes still worth playing over another heroes these days. And guess what? Everyone wants her nerfed.

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->A wild pharmercy approaches.

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Why do you all keep assuming that no aim = no skill.

Heroes that don’t need to aim simply requires LESSSSS skill than those who do. It’s all relative, stop feeling victimize because you main Winston and someone else says he is a low skill hero (because he is). He requires skills, just not like the heroes that require aim.

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I thought this was common knowledge to be honest. I see threads like this come up every so often and I’ve always assumed everyone just kind of agreed.

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Honestly, I don’t buy the argument of “this character is harder, so it should therefore perform better in most situations.”

That’s not how balance works. You balance around the top levels of play, where you can safely assume everyone is playing the characters at an optimal level.

Whether the characters are easy or not does not matter at that point. From there, you pick based on what your team needs and your personal preferences.

You shouldn’t be maining a character like Genji or Tracer with the expectation of being better than less mechanically inclined heroes. You should be picking them because you enjoy their playstyle.

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->Hanzo one trick/main
->Has an ability that can 1 shot 2 tanks in the game.
->Less than 1 hour on Winston
->Less than 4 hours on Rein

So the question is, when you’re countered or there’s 3-4 dps do you switch or…

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Irrelevant as far as the topic goes.

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