Winston is the strongest main tank right now, and a lot of that strength comes from tricks that not many people are aware of, so id like to share the ones I know of, playing Winston without using these tricks is a sure-fire way to keep yourself below master. Feel free to comment if you know any other winston tricks that aren’t obvious.
- Quick note, dont jump into large groups of players, no secret trick will save you from a significant numbers disadvantage.
Animation Cancel / Burst Combo
“What? A burst combo, as winston??? But all her can do is 60 DPS on his cannon!” -The uninformed masses, 2018
What if I told you that Winston can solo kill any 200 HP hero in 1.6 seconds? (He can)
This is much easier to pull off then you might expect, they key to this is the interaction with punch and leap. If you punch just before hitting the ground from a leap, you will do the full 30 punch damage, plus the full 45 leap damage, all without losing a frame of tesla damage.
This is done by punching just before you hit the ground from a leap.
That animation cancel is the absolute key to slaughtering as Winston, it give you a completely free 30 damage.
the full burst combo for taking out a 200HP hero is to leap to them, shoot them on the way down as much as you can, punch animation cancel, tesla them down to <30, then punch. The two punches and the leap deal 105 damage total, and only take the few fractions of a second for the leap landing animation, witch leaves you to deal 95 tesela damage, witch takes ~1.5 seconds. (remember your also doing some of this tesla damage before you even land) Of course, pulling this off consistently is a bit harder then that, but knowing that Winstons optimal time to kill is less then 2 seconds and pulling that off occasionally is POTENT.
If you have a genji, tracer, and/or D.va diving with you, your TTK is microscopic, especially genji. You with a well coordinated genji you can assassinate a 200HP in much less then a second.
Double Jump
"But what if the 200HP hero has slight mobility, and gets out of my range just as I land!!!! I cant possibly burst them down!" - The uninformed masses, 2018Sure there are heroes like Sombra Phara and widow who can fly off into the sunset before you finish them, but in most cases soft mobility like 76 sprint and mcree roll and even mercy depending on positioning is not going to save your poor squishy victims. Heres why.
Just after you land a leap, jumping (spacebar) will keep your momentum and you can get a huge amount of distance.
this is extremely useful as a gap closer to make sure you stay on your target, but there are a few things to be aware of. You can do this in a cone facing the same way you were leaping, but trying to jump backwards the way you came coming out of a leap will not work.
Shield Positioning
"But skelly, even doing this its not like I can kill Mcree or Ana, they can just CC me giving there team time to save them!" -The uninformed masses, 2018This is a much harder trick to pull off, but doing it correctly will make it almost impossible for enemies to hit you with abilities that dont penetrate barriers.
When playing around your barrier, you want to generally be close to its edge, to let you play around it and keep your oponents on the other side. If you land on someone and drop a barrier around the both of you, they can still fight you. You want it to be between you. So how do you get it there?
In order to keep your shield between players your jumping on, drop it just before you do your double jump.
This is the general rule, and doing this will center your shield were you land, and then bounce you right to its edge so you can play around it. There are cases were you might not want to use the double jump, in witch case dropping the shield just before you land will keep it centered just behind were you land putting you closer to its edge.
Good sheildplay can make it extremely difficult for your target to fight back in any meaningful way.
Critbox Hiding
"Ok ok I get it, but sometimes I get killed before I even hit the ground! I cant burst down my target if im dead!!!!" -The uninformed masses, 2018Sure, but its gonna be hard to kill a tank in that timeframe without headshots, and there not going to be able to headshot you. but how? Winston, like many tanks, is a hunchback. This guys head hitbox from behind is like 10% of the size, so if you face away, your hard to crit.
While flying through the air at (good) widows, Hanzos, and McReeeees, face away for most of the arc so they cant headshot you.
This is super situational and its not going to make any significant difference against low ranked players, but America needed to be doing this on Hanamura in worlds last year, Fl0wer was shredding there Winston out of the sky, and honestly any good widow should be able to headshot Winston at the top of his arc.
Summary
“So to be a good WINston, I have to Leap, do a 360, punch, land, barrier, jump, do a 180, tesla, and then punch all in less then 2 seconds every time I dive???”-The newly informed masses, 2018
Not really, there good tricks to be able to do relatively consistently, and the punch cancel is one of the strongest animation cancels in the game, and should be used as often as possible but the other things are fairly situational, there good tools to have but dont over-complicate your game-play if its not necessary.
If you know any other good tricks feel free to share them! Thanks for your time leave a like and tell your Winston friends to read up!