Hey!
So a few year back I sort of gave up on gaming. Not so much gave up, I just stopped caring about comp and stuff and began to get sloppy in terms of my play standard. Due to this I have dropped major SR. Initially I placed silver 1999 but climb up to nearly platinum and maintained this.
But a lot of my friends left the game and what not so I began to just not be as dedicated in general and eventually stopped playing all video games entirely. During this time I die play comp but my SR dropped drastically due to my own fault. I’m now down in the 1800’s for tank, 1700’s for attack and 1500’s for support.
I know you all probably read this ever day about “I’m so much better than this blah blah” I’m not so much better than this. But I do feel I am slightly better than this.
For example, been trying to climb as support as I enjoy playing ana, and managed to climb from 1400 (I came back and placed straight away hence it was even lower where as tank and attack I had brushed a bit of the dust off). But this evening, playing 4/5 comp games as support, three of which I had someone throwing whom I reported on all three occasions, and the other game I had a leaver. How does one climb in these sort of circumstances?
I’m not asking for a miracle or SR reset or anything. But I am getting better, much better. I can feel that as I’m playing I’m getting my awareness back etc. I’m just looking for some advice that you guys could possibly give to help with the climb? I know I’ll climb back up to at least gold but just wondering if there’s anything that could help that I don’t already know of!
Thanks in advance!
As a long term support main my best advice in a general principal is try to avoid solo que as much as possible, if you can duo or trio with someone you know that’ll go miles. (also avoiding tilt helps me a lot personally, its hard but it helps most)
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improving your mechanics on the hero is absolutely critical and will carry you miles when you can hit your shots and your enemies. Also learn quickscoping. Best bet is play FFA while you wait or look up some ai workshop bots they’re really great for improving as even warm up routines.
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Lastly learn when a hero just isn’t going to work for that game or for the round even and try out someone else. Baptiste is good when they have double shield and you struggle getting heals out. Brig is solid when there’s too much dive and your team is rein zarya, and lucio is solid if you enjoy him too.
also hold corners so you don’t get caught in the open while trying to heal.
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Take breaks, and don’t keep queueing when tilted. That and personally I do best when I don’t pay attention to my SR, and just Q up. Also… Coffee.
i can tell you all the things not to do and some things that might help you avoid a long tedious road. hopefully some of this is useful… i dont want others to be stuck in gold for 3 years to learn this, while watching 3 youtube videos on overwatch a day.
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Don’t try and learn every hero. unfortunately… 1 tricking is very effective for climbing. but it is preferable to pick 3-4 hero’s that are flexible in most situations…and play those hero’s upwards of 300 hours. 1k hours seems to get a lot of players above diamond.
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don’t worry about your SR. its an arbitrary number used for matchmaking. it is not a reflection of you skill or knowledge of the game. you climb through mastery of the hero’s. basically spend as much time as you can learning a hero. just dont get trapped into only knowing 1 hero. you need to kno0w a hero or 2 that dont have the weaknesses of your go too.
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Support is a great way to learn all the games hidden patterns.
- Ex: from bronze to somewhere above mid plat (i don’t know exactly how high up before the off tanks figure this out)…off tanks are basically supposed to take some burden off the healers healing resources and keep the main tank alive. but most off tanks don’t learn that for a long time. I’ve been a main tank for 3 years …and it only clicked when i started maining support. off tank is the expendable tank…main tank is not.
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One of those big words nobody explains…POSITIONING…literally means putting yourself in a position where you can:
- die less. dying is bad…the more you do it, the less effective you are. applies to all ranks and all roles.
- take advantage of terrain…while making it hard for the enemy to kill you. like when a widow is high ground left…so you hug a corner on the left side…she cant kill you.
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Another word is GAME-SENSE…would be nice if people actually explained theses concepts like I’m 5…but here it is from “a plat level stuck in gold (~2200 hours)”
(not for much longer 
)…basically:
- Keep tabs
on the enemy using either tab screen or kill feed and determine if a fight is winnable or not…your lone dps and tank are not going to win a fight against 4 enemy players…obviously…they might against 3…but not if they have critical symbols next to their name tags
- Keep track of ults by guessing who might have ults based on the healing you’re putting out, watching the kill feed, or keeping track of the time…you get a feel for this over time…brains are super powered this way.
- For supports handy little tip to know who needs healing…blue upside down arrow next to name tag is called a chevron.
- blue chevron = full health team mate
- yellow chevron = team mate has taken damage and needs healing.
- critical health sign = your team mate is basically on 10% health or less. when more than 1 hero is critical…you have to decide if its possible to save them…or if not…who is expendable and who is not. If you’re anna you have to decide between using ult to save, let the team mate die and saving ult for a different team mate or another fight, or using other methods to keep them alive…you learn what the right decision is with practice. My current philosophy is to keep main tank alive. At gold it seems to help win fights…may have to unlearn this philosophy
at higher ranks.
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Communicate basics to your team…low health heros and their position…keep communication simple and direct. Avoid the trap of criticism of other team mates, keep a PMA(positive mental attitude)…your words will affect the morale of your team mates more than you would ever expect. a compliment is probably the greatest weapon in your armory. your team mates will literally vie for your compliments. humans are strange creatures. 
. the moment you criticize a team mate…you’ve dropped your chances of winning by 25%. and a game that already tries to have your game matched by 50%…you’ve shot yourself in the foot…but a compliment or 2 later can also turn your game around…so yeah…if you feel a criticism is necessary…suggest something instead. a suggestion that is beneficial to them like “if you play x hero then i can combo my ult with you” works sometimes… 
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Finally, review your games with the mindset of what could you do better. First from your point of view…then from the enemies point of view. when i did tank I would ask myself: “do i look intimidating to this enemy tank?”. you’d be suprised how much you learn about yourself from the view of an enemies camera.
Thats it…I hope it is useful to you. I wish i’d learned these things sooner.
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Can you record your games? I can help to review it and tell you mistakes you do. Let me know if you are interested and i will give you my discord.
realize it’s not your job to do it all.
all you need to do is being better at your role than the enemy. so concentrate on that. don’t try to force wins, you’ll just overextend, tilt your team or don’t play your role correctly
if you tank, stick to being the better tank
You kind of have to do your role and partialy other role in low ranks to be honest, if you want to climb. Doing your job is often simply not enough.
My suggestion is that you should pay attention to some things that people seem to ignore. Like, your movement and survival. I don’t like to use term “game awareness” because its so vague that you can’t pinpoint down to what people think. Also, people should understand hero pickups and their style of play. Basically, knowing how to play a hero and knowing how you should move with it and also survive, does a lot.
About rating - I have once reached rating I have now. I think it was during Season 2 and that was because it was Halloween event and I tagged along with some people that did really good. Now, I am queuing solo and I reached the same rating.
My profile is public, so you can check it if you want. Currently it feels like I can go Platinum without big issues and this is me first time saying this ever because for first time, it doesn’t feel like carry.
I only play Damage role. For this season I qualified 5/5 victories and ratings were dynamic. I had 100 ratings up, 100 ratings down. Then 1 win, 1 lost and then again 100 up 100 down and then I started to push more wins than loses. It’s just that eventually you realize the dynamic of game play.
Some teams may appear to be good but actually, are not. This goes for both your and opponent team. So, don’t get stressed about match going fine and then going all of sudden bad. Most of the time, opponent team changed their heroes and your team didn’t. Also, most of the time some teams play too cautiously which results in lost.
Play your game and focus mainly on your game. Do what you can. Always give friendly suggestions and be ready to accept some.
in the lowest ranks you just go for kill everyone and cap, you can get to gold on pure mechanics
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Hey thanks for the replies. Yeah positioning/awareness is one I’m working on atm with Ana as she’s a bit of a weird one as you need need to be right beside the group kind of thing.
I have also looked into the quick scoping which is something I’m trying to pick up, I guess it’s another muscle memory exercise.
My biggest problem atm is legit people throwing. And people getting instantly salty. I was playing on A payload map yesterday for example as tank (Zarya) and the heals where just a bit on the slow side and I asked our ana nicely to swap - like legit I just phrased that it as the heals are a bit slow could you swap to like lucio or something maybe? And instantly it turned toxic. It’s really soul destroying