The only callout I need is “group up”, I wear that button out.
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The absolute worst shotcalling practice is when someone just narrates what they are doing when it has no effect on the fight. Like listing off every single kill they get or calling for a push after they killed two people without realizing that 4 people on their team are already dead, don’t be that guy.
Good things to do especially when no one is talking.
- call out directions, let your team know which way the attack is coming from even if some of you are already facing that direction.
- call healing for other people if they aren’t calling it for themself. If someone is low and your support is doing something else ask your support to heal that character.
- call out people for not grouping up. It’s easier if you play support because you can see who it is through walls. As long as you’re not cursing at someone you’re never going to be wrong telling someone running into a 1v6 to come back (besides overtime).
- Call no more ults, results may vary based on rank, but if the fight is lost or won already, calling out for no one else to use ults can stop someone from wasting theirs.
- call retreat when the fight is lost if you’re at a rank where people only stop when they personally die.
- track ults if you can
- low health targets
- call important cooldowns
- if you realize someone on the enemy team just switched characters.
- ask people to combo ults / ask someone to hold their ult until someone else gets theirs so you don’t leave the combo up to chance.
- call out anything someone else should be calling, but isn’t. Ex. If your Zen isn’t calling discord, then you call discords.
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Between fights callouts should be strategy focused. Say what ults you want to use or what you think the opponents have. The approach strategy you want to take and so on.
In midfight calls I like to stick to the who, where, why method of calls. Say who you’re talking about, where it is, and why you mention it. “Phara half top right”, “Focus Reaper Behind”, “punish rein (when he stupidly charged through the team)”, “I’m dropping”…
The last check is to make sure that it is either useful knowledge that others may not have or if it affects the way you play.
For example:
“Watch out for Dragon” is a stupid call. Everyone can hear the dragon voiceline and knows to not die in it. “Dragon on point” is fine though since some may not know where it was sent.
“Genji be careful” is also a stupid call. The genji knows not to die. “Genji you’re out of line of sight” when you play ana is fine though, because them positioning differently affects your output.
Also don’t be like “Back up Reaper”. Say “we’re not with you Reaper” or “We’re backing up”. Even if they die from the mistake you saw coming, they don’t need to hear about it. The saw the death screen, and know they screwed up. Don’t tell them what to do, tell them why to do it and trust them to make the connection
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For my team:
- Our (hero) is low.
- (hero) behind you! (Flanker)
- Rein has shatter (Or other important enemy ults).
- (enemy hero) above/behind/etc.
- They swapped to (enemy hero)
For attack (less effective, sadly):
- Target coordination: Zen, zen, zen, zen…
- (hero) : Half, one.
- Speed boost to left/EMP in: 3,2,1…
Other calls I can’t think of at the moment.
Four different words or less if at all possible.
Shot calling really varies. When my team doesnt talk I give important enemy locations, flankers, I tell when and who needs to push where. And during down times I give general advice. I don’t give strategies much as I havent really been exposed to them much.
Now, if I have a talkative team I’ll usually get the ball rolling with callouts and then let them do most of callouts to reduce “ear clutter”.
Just last night hanamura second point on defense I’m ana right side of point. We just cleaned up far right. I see a rein and a few others going top left and our mei, back left corner, is heading up to greet them by herself. So I kinda assertively said mei get your a$$ back down here and I’ll nano you when they drop…she came back, they tried push the steps, I nano’ed her. They got rolled after that.
The worst thing is when people hear me giving callouts by myself continuously. They try to do the same and just end up saying everything they see. For example I could tag a mercy with a headshot and she could be 2 shot. But why say anything If I know my team cant get to her.
Shot calling is the most overrated thing in this game. Calling out when abilities have been used is also completely pointless to me. This game is fast paced and people are generally all over. So after I find and target the person with their ability on cooldown it’s already too late.
Just call out when to group up, flankers, what direction to take and maybe an ult combo. Everything else is just useless noise.
Always a good idea:
- tanks letting team know they’re about to engage
- healers letting team know they need a peel
- calling which side to approach from on attack
- calling out which side enemies are coming from on defense
- calling out flankers positions
- letting the team know when you’re planning to use your ult, so they can support you/hold onto theirs accordingly
- calling out hacked targets as Sombra
a good idea only if you know how to do it:
- calling priority targets
- calling ults to be used/saved
- calling whether to keep pushing, fall back or die on point
- asking people to switch heroes
Not useful:
- calling out downed enemies (we all have a killfeed)
- saying “heal me please” in voice chat (healers can’t be depended on to know your voice, either say who you’re playing or just use the ingame emote that also shows us your location)
- calling out the state of your Rein barrier (visuals are pretty clear on that one)
- telling specific people to play specific heroes (they might never have touched that char and not now how to play them. “Can someone play McCree?” is always better than “Tracer switch McCree”)
- telling somebody to do something when you’re unaware of what they actually are doing atm (they might just have died, be dealing with a flanker, or be out of range of where you want them to do something)
This is how I experience different callouts, mileage may vary obviously. 
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Callouts are definitely useless when you are not fast enough to respond to them.
“Don’t stall, wait for the team.”
In the context of the enemy team being on point, you have a teammate near it, and the other 5 are respawning or on their way back, but that 1 guy wants to try deny them a tick, he dies, and your team is now 5v6 when you contest the point, you lose the 5v6, and they cap the point. If you’re really unlucky, the guy who died earlier might have tried to contest a 2nd time and gotten staggered. If you gave them the tick while you regrouped, you could’ve retaken point and only lost a tick instead of the whole point.
Short version: Sometimes it’s better to wait than to stall point.
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I refute this if it’s something useful in the midst of a team fight. So much goes on that it can be easy to miss something if it’s said once, or you keep altering it.
Generally I’ll say something like “Zen low in the back” followed by “Zen low Zen low Zen low” or sometimes even just “Zen Zen Zen”. If it’s a more mobile hero like Mercy I add in location often as well.
I’ve found it best to repeat often and keep things simple for shot calls. It makes sure your team hears it, presses urgency (at least what you want to do if your target is high priority), and keeping it simple means easier to understand.
You cut the context. My next line is saying phrase it differently which you did. So… we agree lol.
Nah. I misinterpreted your post then
The only times when I speak up of needing healing is when I’m main tanking as Rein/Orisa and I’m getting focused or the enemy is pushing towards me. I can’t really “back off” or take cover as a main tank when holding a choke, and me dying will be a huge disadvantage for the team. I also ask for healing when I’m going aggressive, such as "Mercy/Ana, I’m gonna swing forward, please keep me alive.
Other than that, it’s pretty simple to just back off away from damage and use the X button.
Shotcalling isn’t useless just because the games you play in are a chaotic mess, or possibly the fact that you are out of position. If you’re regularly not in a position to act on calls, you might not be in the right place.
Oh I’m fast enough, but the callouts are usually too slow and they are old information.
But keep spamming voice chat with abilities that have been used by the enemy team and are on cooldown, it’s useless.
It’s information overload and it’s useless. There is a reason why Pro OWL voice chat is simply voice chat spamming which enemy to target, over and over again. Because anything else is pointless in this fast paced game.
really no point in using comms below diamond, most of the callouts are pretty obvious, even if you do make ult calls or call strats you wont have the entire team following them so there isnt much of a point. Better off just turning the chat off and focusing on your own playing.
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So this is just completely wrong, OWL just has a preference for going to those types of moments when they take you inside a teams comms. They like those chaotic mid fight moments where there is only time to call targets.
Here’s a story, I work in esports and it occasionally allows me to get close enough to tier 2/ tier 3 overwatch players to hear their comms during matches, not in voice chat, like to actually hear the calls from their mouth.
I already shot call, but hearing them shot call made me realize how much more I could do with my shot calling. If you just listen to OWL all pro players do is yell Monkey, monkey, monkey all game, but that is 100% not true.
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Cool, you keep doing that.
And you proved my point for me. In the middle of the fight, they just spam which enemy to target, because anything else is useless.
OWL teams are also a team, not random people that never play together. Playing with random people and trying to get effective voice communication is very hit or miss. And even if you get “effective” communication, the information is usually old or obvious.
Shot calling also happens outside of fights. I assumed everyone knew that, but maybe I should have started with that.