Man, working on positioning is so hard. But so rewarding. I can feel a massive difference between games I was constantly thinking about it and games I was not.
It’s the kind of thing that becomes less and less forgiving as you go up, so everytime I have a losing streak and drop, the risk is that I learn bad habits again which will get me killed when I go up. Honestly the wild swings in MMR make it so much harder to hone my positioning.
It’s way harder to be disciplined and hold good positioning when I drop a bit and the MMR system puts me in with golds. Golds with no positioning 
Anyways, I’m getting better, but it feels frustrating when people insist on debating hero select instead of focusing on their positioning because no tank will save you walking into junkrat or bastion or widow LOS lol.
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and i´ve never got good at it, there is little to no guide about it
as a tank i need to decide where i will hold so my team can follow me, but sometimes i don´t know where to hold and even when i know, not everyone will know it too and they will hold in a completely different place
positioning is truly the hardest skill
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Positioning is actually very easy.
Just complain on forums about heroes who are better at punishing bad positioning, such as hog, and then you will no longer be punished for bad positioning.
Foolproof plan!
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I think positioning is something that just comes more natural to some players.
It’s not really a skill that can be learned as it just relies on hardwired habits.
Depending on how many different heroes you play, positioning can become hard to maintain.
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You gotta get over hog man, you´re literally alone on that
Devs, tank players, DPS players and Support players
Everyone agrees that hog was bs, bad designed and never a good tank (even worse at 5v5), Wait for the rework
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Idc about hog lol I picked up Ramattra and I literally delete squishies, steal team fights with my ultimate and overall take over games harder than I’ve ever been able to do on hog. Made it to GM very easily despite terrible matchmaking putting golds and plats on my team.
Hog is just a very good example as he punishes bad positioning harder than any hero, while it’s very easy to bait out his hook and even break it using natural cover.
Kinda funny how just the mere mention of hog still causes such a reaction from people.
Ram is strong. Still, he is harder than hog, more fair than hog and better designed than hog in every single way possible
as a matter of fact, hog (and orisa, but mostly hog) was the one gatekeeping Ram from being played before is one shot nerf
He doesn´t punish bad positioning. With OW2 having less stuns, shields, etc… hog incentivizes bad positioning
Every hog main EVER would position himself like a moron because he COULD get away with it, because the hero was just close to immortal. I know you want to prove that even without hog you´re skilled enough to be GM, but sadly that´s not the truth of 90% of hog mains
The same way brig 1.0 defenders will get the same reaction
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I’m not sure I’d call it the hardest skill to learn, but definitely the most essential. At first you need to actively think about it, but after a bit of time it becomes subconscious, and once it does, from that point on you’ll always know when you died to your own positioning mistake, and likely wont make that same mistake again. It just snowballs from there.
Of course that’s just how it was for me, maybe other people find it more difficult to get used to, just as I find some things difficult that other people may not.
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just pick reaper , pharahmecy, orisa, mei , moira and mercy and you dont needs good positions skills. (below gm)
I don’t think it would be possible to produce a comment that is further from the truth even if it was a competition with money on the line.
With Ram, I have guaranteed value with my shield and block. Both my primary fire is very easy value to burn shields/contest snipers with 0 skill, my punches are very easy to land and allow me to destroy squishies that are out of positioning with a shield that lets me deny their heals and protect myself. As hog I would always feel pressured to create value through hooks and plays, while as Ram I get easy guaranteed value and a strong ult.
Also I’ve always been GM and I think it’s barely an achievement with the rank inflation that goes on in this season.
Its very hard to discipline to watch your positioning. If you see supports falling back, fall back. If you see supports outside of vision… fall back. Do not try to save a teammate in terrible position , staying alive is 100% more rewarding. Do that and you will do alot better, just listen to supports they have the highest game sense .
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It´s travel time alone makes it harder to hit than hogs hook
And requires you to be close to the enemy while having a giant hitbox without any form of self heal, hog had a 20 meter hook and could do the same from safety without the target having the option to run away from him
Ram shield is probably the worst part of his kit, and probably compared to any tank ability
His shield has a high cooldown and low uptime, his block is good but youre not doing anything but standing there (which will get you cornered by flankers sometimes, tho it can be really good for contesting the point)
Hog had both damage reduction and self heal
Even less of an achievement when hog was good
I find it easier to learn positioning than to learn aiming, personally. Positioning consists of a lot more tangible concepts, like “high ground is good” and “make sure you have cover to duck behind”, that are easier to focus on and incorporate into gameplay, but aim is much more muscle memory intensive - what are the concepts you focus on? “move mouse on head”? I find it harder to develop muscle memory than adhere to concepts, personally.
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The game could be balanced in any way based on the fantasies of the slowest bronze player on the forums and I will still be able to make an alt and get from un ranked to gm.
Hog was the most skill based tank that forced you to make plays. Funny how diamonds will try to discredit anything that was achieved through anything that causes them butthurt.
The reason everyone cries about how is cuz he takes skill and so an enemy tank couldn’t just mirror a dominating hog cuz they would get stomped even harder.
Stay mad and hard stuck.
It is just having an escape plan prepared, good position and bad position can change with the flow it is about reading the situation and having an escape plan in mind… If you at least plan an escape if you need to move, the reading the situation comes from experience
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now you´re just being delusional, not even hog mains tierlists had hog as the hardest tank or anything close to that
the only way to stop hog was mirroring hog, or orisa
Talk about delusion, you are living in a fantasy world and every comment you make is a bridge between that world and reality, very exciting stuff!
Positioning is dynamic which is why it’s hard to master it. There are many useful guidelines how to overall position your character properly, but everything has context and exceptions to the rules. But I wouldn’t call it the hardest skill to learn overall, you can learn it to good level pretty easy. It’s certainly easier to learn something that requires knowledge than something on the mechanical side. First one is just about knowing things and understanding concepts like highground, cover, corners, choke points and second one requires TONS of practice and training.
There is a reason why people in higher ranks rarely make positional blunders, but they still fail on mechanical side all the time. You can learn and remember where you should stay on every map, but you can’t just learn how to aim and expect to land every shot.
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The survivors bias is strong in this thread. Whatever is relevant to OP and makes them successful is what counts.
OP pointed out how golds position in their games. imo Part of positioning is also working with how your team positions.
Those who aim better are able to get away with being in places they shouldn’t be. Simply because they can aim better and do it faster.
If you’re against a smurf you might have to position greedier or much safer in an attempt to win.
I guess that (when stating the obvious) knowing when to take more than you should or give more than you should is the difference between high elo players positioning and low elo players positioning.
Knowing what your mechanical skill can afford you positionally also helps a lot.
Edit: It’s simply not worth it to play widow and position perfectly only to miss every shot you take. Positioning like crap but still hitting every shot on the other hand is much more valuable. Hence why we see cheaters reaching high ranks on streams and videos while content creators point out how bad they position.
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Why? Principles are the same for every rank, the only thing that changes is that everyone plays more in the open, make rotations slower etc. so YOU have easier job punishing mistakes than in higher elo. Don’t mirror what people are doing if you want to climb. Learn what’s good and stick with it. Don’t peel for suicidal teammates, play your good positions and carry more than enemy tank.
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