So I’ve been taking notes on how a dps player switch heroes and I noticed something.
It basically boils down to two types. The mechanical player and the ability player.
For example, a Tracer player would switch to Genji or vice versa, or Genji would switch to Doomfist. Sometimes these players also switch to hitscan and hitscan players switch between hitscan heroes. Hanzo fit somewhere here too. These are the mechanical players.
And then there are ability players. These players tend to switch between heroes that rely on abilities. Like Junkrat/Pharah, Sombra, Symmetra. Torb and Mei are here too.
Now, what’s the point of this.
Well, if a Pharah is crapping on your team and you have ability dps players, you are screwed.
My heart sinks when enemy team goes Pharmercy and I get like Junkrat/Symmetra/Sombra/Reaper. As Pharmercy is a potent combo that requires mechanical heroes to counter, but ability dps players tend not to switch.
But if you have mechanical players and the enemy runs double shield, you can expect them to switch to strong shield breakers like Junkrat or Pharah, although they tend to stay with mechanical shield breakers (soldier/Hanzo) longer than they should.
I’ve been researching dps players for their flaws and this is my most recent discovery about them. Mechanical players can be decent ability dps players but ability dps players are much less likely to be decent mechanical players. Thus, mechanical dps players are more desirable to have on your team.
Of course there are always exceptions but for the most part, this is my observation.
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Are suggesting a change or mainly sharing your theory?
Tracer, Genji, and Doom use abilities way more than Pharah Id say
They use all abilities to get kills, while Pharah just uses hers to fly, and her killing is done with primary weapon aiming
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this maybe holds some truth in low elo, but in general, you should swap to the hero you can have the most impact on.
staying on a hero you can have impact on is how you climb on dps
Now, this is made harder by 3 things:
- you should still try to pick a hero that is synergistic to the team comp (as much as possible)
- you should still try to pick a hero that is good vs the enemy comp
- you should pick a hero you are good at (I see this mistake in plat/diamond all the time, where I get counterpicked a lot but people don’t know how to play the hero they picked and end up making it easier for me)
- (bonus) you should pick a hero that neutralizes/kills the highest impact player in the enemy team.
Now, there are heroes that are very strong, to the point that they can work vs most comps. For example, Hanzo is bad vs Rush comps, but can be made work if you are lucky or land a few good early hits.
Tracer is also a good hero that wins most 1v1s (assuming it’s PURE 1v1), but whenever you find yourself getting peeled away, or the enemies play all together and don’t wander around alone (which is the right play vs a carry Tracer and the best counter to her short of swapping Torb etc.), you should swap.
In high elo, in our Tracer example, a Tracer player who is getting peeled too hard very often goes Hanzo/Ashe, because generally a comp that stays clumped together is some form of Mercy/Ana/Cree/Zarya and none of those heroes can really contest snipers.
Ultimately, I disagree that there are “abilities-driven players” and “mechanical players”. You can’t climb PURELY with hitscan, and you can’t climb purely with cheese/abilities-driven heroes (Sombra, Junkrat etc.). Ideally you strike a good mix of both
2 Likes
High ELO one tricks: Are you sure about that?
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Tracer 100% rely on mechanics to get kills. Genji needs to do majority of damage with mechanics and can only finish with dash. Doom is half and half depending on how he engages. Slam/Uppercut combo needs mechanical skills to finish (kind of the reverse of Genji)
It’s not just DPS though, tanks and support players doesn’t seem to understand counters properly and soft throws by picking a bad hero. People in general doesn’t seem to take this game seriously anymore, even in comp. But not switching to the right hero hurts the most for tanks and DPS imo. Some may disagree but even with throw support picks, you are technically still getting healing. And there’s not much point with your support picking main-healer if they can’t heal properly and dies from being out of position.
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Yes and no. Abilities take great mechanics (tracer, doomfist, etc.).
The “ability” based heroes you are talking about… Those are just brawl heroes.
Brawl heroes tend to have a low skill ceiling and are very niche, but they are made viable in the right team comp with the correct supports.
Personally, I rarely see anyone switch from hitscan to genji/tracer. Sometimes they go Sombra, but that’s it.
Generally speaking, dive dps can play anything, long range dps can swap to brawl dps, and brawl dps can’t swap to anything else.
That’s just what I noticed though 
symmetra mains, feel free to prove me wrong.
high elo 1 tricks differ: some climbed many seasons ago, others during “rare periods” when the game in diamond/masters is good to the point that what they say in OW YT guides (if you are Symmetra vs Phara, play small rooms), does apply because someone bothers going hitscan for them. That’s not average OW, though. It’s very common for 1 tricks to drop out of GM all the time and then get boosted back by a tank main or something.
As for hitscan specifically: yes, it is currently possible to climb as hitscan only, it is a good role. Obstacles along your way: Hanzo (counters nearly every hitscan, you need to be very good at Ashe/Widow or be lucky that ur team takes care of him if u are Cree/Soldier. Dva, Ball, Winston (all 3 these heroes counter hitscan very hard). Zen also has a >= 50% chance to win vs most hitscan DPS. Depends also if you consider Tracer hitscan or not, if you do, then yes Tracer is very good vs something like Zen, Hanzo and immune to Dive tanks so if you flex to Tracer in your hero pool you climb faster.
This is just wrong. Any mid masters player could make a new account, 1 trick their main and be back in masters by level 35-40 latest.
Anyway, on topic.
If any of these players were more likely to win they wouldn’t be the same rank.
maybe 2-5 seasons ago, atm the matchmaking is too bad to allow that, you get very lopsided games in plat/diamond where you always need to be on the best hero, you can’t just 1 trick and hope your team wins it for you.
Already 1 tricking Tracer in plat/diamond is hard when u get such big problems as a guy playing McCree and not knowing he a) must play frontline with a Tracer, b) is able to hit enough shots. And Tracer is one of the better heroes to 1 trick, because she is very versatile, imagine if you go something sh*tty like Junkrat that is extremely exploitable by heroes like Hanzo or Phara or even Zarya.
In general, season after season, it has become harder and harder even for GMs/top500s to climb (but still possible), due to bad matchmaking and many 1 tricks. Signs of a dead game, I guess.
Without Blinks & Retrace pacing herself via Cooldowns?
Any Tracer out of Abilities dies quickly.
There are still a few flex DPS, I enjoy playing a mix of Tracer, Pharah, Soldier, Sombra and Ashe with Reaper and Mei as backups and have never touched doomfist or Genji
Imo, bring back defence and offense roles since they were mostly split along these lines anyways
Sombra can hack phara and make her fall down. There are junkrat players that can reach phara with mine jumps. Attacking the four players on the other team that aren’t phara will force mercy to leave phara. As support you can switch to bapt or ana. ML7 shoots down pharas easily.